Little Universes

by Heather Demetrios

  It doesn’t take long for the Percocet to kick in. It’s much stronger than Vicodin, and I went straight to my old dose, even though I haven’t worked up to it. Rookie mistake, but I don’t regret it because halfway through math I’m in my happy place. But remodeled. Warmer and fuzzier. Drew looks over at me a few times, and I smile, actually smile at him. I have no idea what’s happening in class—there’s a lot of shit I don’t understand on the board. The teacher calls Drew Mr. Nolan, and I have fun making sounds in my head with his last name. Drew Nooooo—laaaaan. Nohhhhhh. Llllllllllannnnn. When the bell rings, I float out the door.

  “You only took one, right?” Drew asks quietly as he comes up to me.

  I nod. “I’m a lightweight. And you’re a very nosy drug dealer.”

  “Good customer service, remember?”

  He puts his hand on my elbow and guides me away from the pushing and shoving, from the hordes of people. A life raft in this wave.

  “How good?”

  He gives me a sideways glance. “What do you mean?”

  “Like, good enough to ditch with me good?”

  He hesitates for just a second. “Yeah, okay.”

  And, just like that, I’m skipping out on the rest of the school day with Saint Francis’s resident drug dealer.

  my father is a liar.

  Wall

  Boston Public Library

  Boston

  15

  Hannah

  Drew grabs my hand and leads me toward the closest exit. We’re in the neighborhood across the street from Saint Francis by the time the bell rings. I notice we’re still holding hands, but I don’t move away. It feels good to have some kind of contact. I am the girl that still laid her head in her mother’s lap when she was seventeen.

  Also, his hand feels like warm sand—or maybe I’m just full of warm sand.

  “My head feels like an hourglass,” I say. “Like…” I stop and I show him. The sand that’s falling, so slowly from the crown of my head, down, down. “You know?”

  “I’m glad to see my product’s working so well.”

  “Five stars.”

  He nods toward a Ford Fusion that’s seen better days.

  “This is precisely why I don’t park in the student lot,” he says.

  “A good Knight of Wands move.”

  He laughs. “Um, okay, whatever that means. I like the knight part.”

  “Your cards. Tarot.”

  “Ah. Cool. So, where to?”

  “I don’t know. I usually go to the beach. But the beach here sucks. What do you recommend?”

  “How about the Common?”

  “All right.”

  Boston’s most famous park. Right in the middle of the city, where we can hide in plain sight.

  “Didn’t they kill people there?” I ask as he starts up the car.

  “Yeah. Public hangings.”

  “Fuck.”

  I sink into the seat and close my eyes. “Your car smells like ass lemons.”

  “Air freshener. Sorry. My cousin is always borrowing it and smoking his crappy cigarettes in here.”

  I peek at him. “You don’t smoke?”

  “No. That shit kills you. And they’re wicked gross.”

  This is funny. It makes me lauggghhhhhhhh. My drug dealer is kind of a square.

  “Says. The. Drug. Dealer.”

  It gets hot, really hot, and I start taking things off. “Can you roll down the windows?”

  “On the door next to you.”

  I look at the knob-thingy. “This car is so old.”

  “Hey, it’s a car. You wanna take the T?”

  The thought of getting on the subway is, like, so horrible. People eating food. All that perfume. Talking on their cell phones. The way it makes those sharp turns and I can never keep my balance.

  “God. No.”

  “Okay, then. Show Sunny some respect.”

  “You named your car.”

  “Fuck yeah, I named her. She’s my pride and joy.”

  I smile at him, then pet the dashboard. “Good girl, Sunny.”

  “Oh my God. She’s not a dog.”

  The look on his face. I burst out laughing again.

  “I’ll be here all night,” Drew says.

  I stare out the window as he drives us into the center of the city, not too far from Saint Francis. The buildings here are beautiful, like we’re speeding through a picture book: brick with elegant molding; old, narrow streets.

  I stop talking. I don’t know if Drew’s picking up my vibe or if he’s normally quiet. He’s got a local college station on—Emerson, probably—and it feels right, somehow, to be in a car with a drug dealer while Ben Howard sings along with his guitar.

  Drew parks on a side street, then jumps out and comes around to help me.

  “A gentleman drug dealer, eh?” I say when he opens the door.

  He gives a bow. “At your service.”

  I follow him down the narrow street and out onto Tremont, past another old church. The sand in my head falls, falls. Boston is so much better when you’re high.

  “This place must have more churches than anywhere else,” I say as we pass a large stone one. Puritans, man. “Except maybe Rome. Have you been?”

  He laughs. “I’m a Saint Francis charity case, remember? The farthest I’ve been is an ill-advised trip to drop off product in Brooklyn.”

  I forget sometimes that my family has money, that things are easy for us. Except the staying-together-and-alive part.

  “I’ve never been to Brooklyn,” I say.

  A massive gust of wind blows past us, and I shriek a little. Drew laughs.

  “Gotta get your East Coast sea legs,” he says.

  “It’s fucking freezing!”

  He laughs. “Oh, Hannah. It’s only the beginning of October. You just wait until February.”

  We start across the wide expanse of Boston Common, which is filled with people even though it’s already cold as hell. I shiver, and he takes off his coat without a word and drapes it around my shoulders.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Shut up,” he says with a soft smile.

  “Thanks.”

  His warmth seeps into me, caught in the fibers of the wool coat.

  I wonder what Micah’s doing. He didn’t call me back last night—the first time that’s ever happened.

  “It’s okay, though,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Am I talking out loud?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Never mind.” I reach out my hands as the sun blazes out from behind a cloud and gives my face a big, warm kiss, so I kiss it back. “I am so much smarter than my sister!”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Yes. She’s fucking sweating it out at that jail school place Saint whatever and I am in Boston Common with you and we know the secret of everything.” I smile at him. “Mom told me I should never wear sensible shoes or business casual.”

  He looks down at my canvas tennis shoes, no socks.

  “You took her advice.”

  The sad, it just swoops in and whispers, Your mother is dead, and I can’t breathe.

  “Hey,” Drew says. “Hannah, hey. Let’s do my favorite thing. Yeah? It’ll be nice. I promise.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I know.” He takes my arm. “I know,” he says again, very soft, but not in a patronizing grief voice. He is actually really listening. Hearing me. No one ever does that.

  We pass a pretzel cart and just the thought of it makes me want to hurl. A guy is selling balloons. Little kids on a school trip, all connected to one another on harnesses, like some kind of primary-color chain gang.

  When we reach the grass, Drew pulls me toward the green blades. “Lie down. But close your eyes.”

  I lie down. I close my eyes. The grass feels prickly.

  The sand falls faster, faster. The sun is warm, and all the sounds, it’s all happening.

  “It’s all happening,” I whisper.<
br />
  Bright warm light, an opening wider and wider, I open, my chest filling with the sun, and oh my God, how did I not see this before, see all of this?

  “It’s all one,” I say. “Holy shit, I AM the walrus. They put this secret in the song! You are me and we are all together—fuck. No wonder Yoko fell for him. John Lennon, man. John fucking Lennon. Wow.”

  I feel Drew squeeze my hand.

  Everyone’s peak looks different. Mine is like what Mae says being in a space camp gravity tank is like.

  Z

  E

  R

  O

  Gravity.

  But then I feel it go. After a while. Like bubbles popping. Such pretty sky water. Then: gone.

  I open my eyes and turn to Drew. He reaches up and holds a hand over me, blocking the sun so I can see him better.

  Mae’s right: He kind of does look like a bad vampire.

  “Peaked?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good?”

  “So good. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The sun goes away and it’s immediately so much colder.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s warm up.”

  Drew helps me stand and we cross back to the path and I don’t even care that I’m leaning against him, I’m so tired.

  I sigh. “I think my high is gone.”

  He reaches into his pocket and hands me another pill. “This one’s on me. Just a five. A little top-up.”

  “Thanks.”

  In twenty minutes, I’ll be me again.

  “What about you?” I ask.

  “That parking spot is only good for three hours. I have to take care of Sunny. You go ahead. I’m good.” We near a pretzel cart and he stops, grabs his wallet. “You hungry?”

  “God, no. Food and opiates do not mix.”

  “Just one for me,” he says to the guy as we walk up. “Salt, please.”

  Please.

  “What kind of drug dealer are you?” I ask once we’ve left pretzel guy behind.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You say please.”

  Drew has a shy smile, and it’s cute.

  “I mean, you don’t have to be a dick to deal.”

  “Tell me, please, how does someone become a dealer?”

  He shrugs, pulls off a bit of pretzel. We walk along a path and it’s nice. Walking. Being in the sun.

  “It just kind of … happened. After I came to Saint Francis, people started asking me to hook them up. They figured since I came from Dorchester, I’d have a way to get product.”

  The neighborhood Mom grew up in, when she was really little. Rough around the edges, she called it. Dad was the one with the Mayflower money, but what Mom’s family did, getting out of Greece and making a life in America even though they hardly spoke the language—that was always more impressive to me.

  “So you had a way to get what they wanted, or you, like, signed up with a cartel?”

  He laughs. “My cousin has a thing going with pills.”

  “Must be good money. That’s why you do it?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah. Mostly. Rich kids at Saint Francis are gonna buy this shit from someone, right?”

  “Like me.”

  “You’re not like them.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Hey,” he says. I look at him. “You’re not. Like them. They just want to party. You … you know. There are extenuating circumstances.”

  “I told you, I don’t want your pity, Drew.”

  “You don’t have it.”

  I reach out and pick a thick grain of salt from his pretzel, rub it between my fingers. I miss the smell of the ocean.

  “You said you mostly do it for the money,” I say. “Why else?”

  “Are you always this curious?”

  I think about that. “It depends on the thing. Or the person. You’re very interesting.”

  “I am?”

  “Obviously. For one, you don’t wear boat shoes.” I smile. “But I think you’re stalling. So. Other than money, why do you deal?”

  He shrugs. “It’s nice to have a … a role. You know. Like, I’m not a jock or a nerd or whatever.”

  “That’s just sad, Drew.”

  He balls up the paper from his pretzel and lobs it into a nearby can. “Someone’s gotta provide the good times. It might as well be me.”

  My phone buzzes—a text from Mae. School must have just gotten out.

  “My sister’s checking up on me.” I shove the phone back into my pocket. “I’ll make up a good story before I get home.”

  “She’s not into this scene, huh?”

  I snort. “No way. She’s crazy smart—wants to be an astronaut, like, literally a rocket scientist. My dad taught physics, so…”

  “Wow. I don’t think I’ve met anyone that wants to be an astronaut who’s over the age of, like, ten.”

  “Right?” We veer toward the Public Garden, past rows of red and orange trees. The fall colors are so bright—straight out of Dr. Seuss. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask. “Pharmaceutical industry bigwig?”

  “Nah. A respectable citizen,” he says, with that half smile again. “I like to draw. Maybe something with that.” He looks away. “Though who am I kidding? I’ll probably just end up joining the union like my dad, working construction.”

  “That would be a waste of your entrepreneurial talents.”

  He laughs. “What about you?”

  “No idea.”

  I’d planned to live with my parents until Micah and I saved enough money to move out on our own. I thought I’d just figure life out as I went along. Now that I don’t have them, it suddenly seems really important that I have a Plan. I can’t mooch off of my aunt and uncle forever. I can’t work part-time at Mom’s yoga studio, like we were talking about.

  “I just want…” I glance at him. “Never mind.”

  “Nu-uh. You just want what?”

  “My sister has all these huge, planet-sized goals. I think it’d be nice to be like my mom. She taught yoga, had us, made soup, kicked around in her garden. Just had a life.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he says.

  “It was all about the Something Else for her. Finding … the source, or whatever, every day. Connecting to it. To us. Like we were this big spirit soup she was making.” I frown. “But for that to work, you need other people. People you can depend on.”

  A husband who doesn’t fucking leave you for his hot young research assistant, for one.

  “Your sister?”

  “Hard to depend on someone when they’re in outer space.”

  I stumble a little—it’s hard to walk and float at the same time—and he reaches out to steady me.

  “Thanks.”

  I lean into Drew, just a little. He smells like tea tree. I take a deep breath and he laughs softly.

  “Are you … smelling me?”

  I nod. “I love tea tree.”

  “Yeah, my ex got me this bougie soap and I’m kind of hooked on it.”

  “It’s nice.” I take a deep breath of cold, fresh air. It clears my head more than I want it to.

  “Do you have a girlfriend, Drew? Or just an ex with good taste in soap?”

  “Nope. Just the ex. Why?”

  “You’re cute and nice and have wonderful little pills. What’s not to like?”

  “What, indeed?”

  “I’m not hitting on you,” I say.

  “I know. College boyfriend—got it.”

  We pass under an enormous tree that’s beginning to turn, bright red and orange creeping onto the leaves, like spilled paint.

  “We don’t get this in Cali,” I say. One of the leaves floats down and Drew reaches out and grabs it, then holds it out to me. Bright red.

  “A genuine Boston souvenir,” he says.

  I smile, take it. Some things are pretty when they die.

  “I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”

  �
�It’s just a leaf,” he says, laughing.

  “Don’t be mean to my leaf. She’s beautiful.”

  He runs a finger over one of my leaf’s dark veins. “She is.”

  We start walking again. “You miss LA?” he asks.

  I nod. “I mostly hate it here. No offense.”

  “Hey, if I had to leave paradise, I’d be pretty pissed, too.” He frowns a little. “So you’re going back? After graduation?”

  “My boyfriend and I … We had this plan. I’m supposed to move in with him. Next summer.”

  Drew raises his eyebrows, two dark slashes. Very dramatic, those eyebrows. I like them.

  “Supposed to?”

  I shrug. “We’ll see.”

  It’s all mixed up now. He wasn’t at the clinic, but he was there, almost every second, after the wave. And I miss him. But I also don’t. It’s nice not to have someone look at you with a question in their eyes all the time.

  “What about your sister?”

  “She’ll be in school. Annapolis. MIT if she has bad luck. Harvard. Whatever.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah. We aren’t as close as we used to be. The older we got, the more—she’s like this intergalactic being, you know? And she’s always on my ass. Watching me. I don’t know. I love her. She’s just—if you ever meet her, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And then our parents … It’s all fucked. Just fucked.”

  “I bet it’s a lot to process.”

  “A lot. Yeah.” I shake my head. “I can’t talk about this anymore. It’s killing my buzz.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want that.” He steers me toward the side of the path. “Come meet my friends.”

  And I get nervous until my eyes catch a line of little bronze statues on the ground at my feet—ducks.

  I crouch down to pet one of them.

  “Hi,” I say to them. I look up at Drew. “They’re so cute.”

  “These guys are famous.” Drew squats down beside me. “Ever read the kids’ book Make Way for Ducklings?”

  I can almost hear Mom as she turns the page, making the quack sounds of the ducks. Mae and I are in matching nightgowns, our toenails painted pink. I nod, feeling teary all of a sudden. I stand, blinking hard so they don’t fall.