“You must be Jess.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Ben Alvarez. Everyone here calls me Mr. A.”
“Whatever you want.”
His smile straightens slightly at my tone, but it’s the uncontrollable asshole force inside of me taking over. I can’t turn it off.
“Just have a seat anywhere you’d like.”
There’s a little girl with short hair, bright red Skechers, and her arms crossed tight across her chest. I go sit in the chair next to her. “Hey,” I say.
She shrugs and crosses her arms tighter.
“I’m Jess.”
She shifts away from me.
“Okay, gang. Let’s do a little warm-up activity so we can meet the new people today.” Mr. A grabs a chair and turns it around so he’s sitting with his arms resting on the back of it, his legs straddled to either side. “I’d like you to say your first name, and who you’re grieving. For example, I’m Mr. A and I’m grieving my granddad.”
He goes around the room and when he gets to me I get stuck. What do I say? Do I say my dad, or Vivi, or both? He waits and all the little kids look at me or don’t, but I can tell they’re all listening. I’m the oldest one here besides the therapist and they’re curious about me, I’m sure.
“Um. I’m Jess. And I was grieving my dad, but now I’m grieving my, uh, um . . .” I decide to just say it. “My girlfriend, Vivi.” My voice chokes on the last word and the little girl next to me uncurls and hands me the rock she has hidden in her hand.
“Hold this,” she whispers. “It helps.”
I take it and nod. Then she says, “I’m Darla and I’m grieving my dad, too.” She looks at my hands as I roll her rock in my palm, so I hand it back to her with a thank-you.
“See,” she says.
“You’re right.”
She doesn’t curl back up.
When the circle finishes with introductions, Mr. A asks us to stand up from our chairs and stretch to the sky, then stretch to the ground, then he has us stretch our fingertips into the center of the circle. “You feel that energy shooting out of your fingers? I think it’s strong enough that those we are grieving can feel it, too.” Twenty tiny hands wiggle their fingers with all their might.
He asks us to sit again and then requests volunteers, popcorn style. “If you have a picture you brought, or a memory you’d like to share, this is a good time. Remember, if someone else raises their hand to share before you, let’s give them the chance to speak.”
A little boy across the room holds up a framed military photo of his mom. “This is my mommy. She’s not coming home.” His hands tremble and his shoulders shake and my heart pounds. I want to hug him and tell him it will all be okay, but I know it’s not true. He sits down abruptly, hugging the photograph to his body.
Mr. A puts a calming hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Justin. This is a safe space to cry.” Then to the rest of us, “Raise your hand if you cried this week.” All hands in the room go up. Justin lets the tears he was holding in his shoulders spill out onto his cheeks. Little sobs can be heard all around me. It is killing me.
A few more kids share stories. A girl named Destiny talks about a fishing trip to the Outer Banks and how her big brother taught her how to put a worm on a hook. A boy named Tyler shows us a toy truck in his bag that had been his granddaddy’s first, then his dad’s, now his.
I raise my hand.
“Jess.” Mr. A nods for me to go ahead.
“Um, my dad died when I was closer to your age. He would hold me high up in the air to put the angel on the top of our Christmas tree. That’s my favorite memory.” I don’t talk about Vivi, it’s too fresh. But nobody asks me to either.
Mr. A, once satisfied no one else is going to share, pulls out a box of lap desks and paper, along with various supplies. “Everybody get a desk and paper and the drawing tools of your choice. Today we’re going to create a picture of what we think the ones who are missing from our lives are doing right now.”
The kids get up and grab what they need. I hesitate. The Sakura drawing pens haven’t been out of my bag since the afternoon on the lake. But Darla is watching me expectantly to see if I’m going to grab markers, too. She’s even brought me a piece of paper and a lap desk. My hands fidget with my zipper but I can’t do it. If I draw, all of this sorrow is going to leak onto the page and I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
“I’m, uh, I’ve got to go.” I grab my bag and run out of the room and into the ladies’ bathroom. I stare at myself in the mirror and splash water on my face. My heart is beating out of my chest and it’s taking every muscle I have to keep from breaking down. When I walk out, Mr. A is waiting for me.
“Are you okay?”
I cling to my backpack. “Yeah, fine. But I don’t want to draw. I don’t want to do this.” Part of me wants to tell him the truth, that drawing, creating, is Vivi, is me, is life, is death, is everything all rolled away like a rock over a crevice. I’m not ready to let go of her yet. And if I start to find a way to live, to work on the work of moving on, she might truly disappear. Making art, even if it’s stick drawings with little kids, is too close to allowing myself something good.
“You don’t want to work with me and the kids?”
“I don’t mind working with the kids. But I won’t draw.”
“That’s fine. You don’t have to draw. You can help the others and wander around the room, let them tell you their stories.”
I realize he’s got some backdoor counseling going on with me, but I don’t feel like a confrontation. I can commit, then back out later. “Yeah, next week. I’ll do it next week.”
“Here.” Mr. A holds out his hand—cradled in it is Darla’s rock. “She wanted you to have this. Said you might need it until next week.”
Wow. I’m more messed up than the littles.
“Okay, yeah. Tell her thanks.”
“Thursday?”
I stare at Darla’s rock. He said I don’t have to draw.
“Next week,” I repeat. “Thursday.”
“Good, see you then.” He turns and leaves and doesn’t insist I return because he knows the rock will bring me back. I find a chair in the lobby and curl up until I see Mom’s car pull to the curb to take me home.
22
Now: Two Weeks, Five Days After
Friday afternoon, I stand at the forge, sweat dripping down my brow, feeling free. There’s no room for misery when you’re handling red-hot iron. The hammering is also a surprisingly effective way to work out any anger languishing in my cells. Death. Bam. Grief. Bam. Sorrow. Bam.
I feel Greer’s approval as I bend the rod and put it in the vise, twisting the hot iron for the decorative part. Me and this coat hook thing are kind of natural. I stick the piece of iron back into the coal fire to heat the tip where the nail hole goes. Greer works by my side. The boys are across the room. I glance in her direction. “Remember what you said about me maybe liking this?”
She smiles. “Was I right?”
“Yeah. You were.” I readjust my tongs to center the hook over the heat. “I never thought I’d do something like this in my life. I mean, I never even really knew it was a thing.”
“It’s a thing. And it’s more than this and horseshoeing.”
“It is?”
Greer motions for me to remove the hook from the flame and I do, moving it to the anvil where she uses an awl to punch a hole in the red-hot metal. When I quench it, she takes off her gloves.
“You know, I’ve been thinking, Jess. You said you were only with McGovern for a few more weeks. Which is good for you. But if you’re really into this, I’d love to teach you the trade. That is if you’re interested.”
“Really?” My mind races. Then stalls. Because my first thought is I can’t wait to tell Vivi about this.
“Yeah.” She glances toward the boys and lowers her voice. “Look, it’s not that I don’t think all of McGovern’s kids deserve a chance to learn a trade that can actually lead to a
career. That’s why I work with anybody he sends me, even if it’s a pain to retrain some of them over and over. But you’re the first girl who’s ever landed here since they started the program. I’ve talked to my wife about how fulfilling it would be to train a female student.”
I cut my eyes up quickly. So, Greer is gay, too. And married.
“If it’s okay with your mom, you should come out to our house sometime. I’ve got my own forge set up in the back and I make stuff there. You could see how this works for something other than endless furniture hardware.”
A rapid slice of excitement surges through me. Working with Greer, going to the VA, these are things that might help me get through the days. It’s something my mom reminded me of. To get through the days one by one and eventually they’d get easier. If I can get through enough days, I might figure out how to be a person who can cope, without intentionally pushing her feelings, or her best friend, away. “Yeah, I’ll ask her. Or you could. I can give you her number so you can talk to her. It’d probably be better that way. This whole thing”—I motion around the industrial site—“hasn’t exactly put me in her good graces.”
“Of course.” Greer lifts her head and yells across the forge at Levon and James to throw some more coal onto their station. Then she turns back to me. “You’ve got a natural way with the metal. Have you thought about what you’re going to do after high school?”
I look down before answering. Apparently, when you’re a senior in high school, having your shit together is what’s expected. From everyone. I could give her the old story, that I’m applying for the graphic design program at State, but I don’t. The deadline is in three weeks and there’s no way I’ll be ready.
“I haven’t thought about much other than Vivi the last few weeks.”
“Ah. Right. I can’t even imagine. It must be incredibly painful.” Greer puts a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s whack on some more iron rod, then when we take a break I’ll show all of you some tech programs available here in our great state.”
“In blacksmithing?”
“Some.”
Inside I have a bit of a fight with myself. I’m supposed to be a hundred percent miserable, but the idea of continuing to blacksmith after Cabinetworks is over gives me a faint charge, despite myself.
When I leave school, I shove the pages I’ve printed about some of the programs into my backpack and turn on my phone. It lights up with texts. From Levi.
Hey. That’s the first one.
Then.
—So, I’m guessing your phone is off or something?
Then.
—Do you want to hang out tonight? I was thinking we could maybe go bowling.
Then.
—As friends. Not a date, obviously.
I text the poor guy back to put him out of his misery.
—Yeah. Bowling sounds good. But nowhere close. I don’t feel like running into kids from school.
The reply is lightning immediate.
—Sure. We can go down to Carolina Lanes. It’s far. My dad’s out on his big rig so I can use his regular truck tonight. Pick you up at 6?
I reply in the affirmative and climb on the bus. The only seat is next to Deuces. He shifts away from me when I sit down.
“Come on, man. How many times do I have to apologize?”
“More.” Deuces talks to the window.
“I’m sorry. Okay? I know I put you in a spot, but your friend did grab my crotch.”
“You didn’t have to go all assault and battery on him. We could have dealt without me risking my parole.”
“Yeah, I guess. But you didn’t say anything either. You didn’t tell him to stop. What if I were your sister or your cousin, would you have just stood there?”
“Of course not. But did you give me time to say anything before you started swinging your stick? I gave him my mind after you bolted. Told him it’s shit to treat a lady that way.”
“You did?”
“Just because I’m a parolee doesn’t mean I’m low class. Of course I did.”
I mutter, “Fine. Can we stop being mad at each other? You’re my only bit of sanity in this hellhole.”
Deuces lifts a closed fist and I dap his with my own. Then he hands me his phone. “Speaking of cousins.”
There’s a photo of one of the girls from the community center, braids not boobs. She looks like Zoë Kravitz. Pretty.
“Remember her?”
“Yeah.”
“She wants your digits.”
Though this would be the moment to make a completely inappropriate lesbian joke, I hold it inside. And feel a little sick. I’m not ready to give another girl my number. Even if she is gorgeous. “No, man. I can’t do that. I don’t know her.”
“She’s been driving me crazy. Won’t let up talking some crap about you being such a stud and how she wants to start talking to you.”
Gross. Now I definitely don’t want to give her my number. But he hands me his phone with my name already in his contacts and points at his ankle monitor. “You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“True, but I’ll be your BFF.” He puts his hands up on either side of his cheeks and bats his eyelashes at me. It’s so ridiculous, I cave.
“Fine.” It hasn’t even been three weeks since Vivi died. I could give Deuces the statistic I read about it taking at least a month for every year a couple has been together to get to a place of acceptance with the grief, but I figure he won’t care. Or he’ll feed me some bullshit about how the best way to get over someone is with a new someone. And I can’t imagine being ready to date anybody new. Ever.
“Texting only.”
“That’s between y’all, but I’m sick of listening to her whine every afternoon.”
I change the subject after I punch my number into his phone. Stupid it took a girl for me to do that. We should have gotten each other’s numbers that first day at McGovern’s. “So, was Monte telling the truth?”
“What truth?”
“That you’re into dudes.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“I hook up with this hot girl in my neighborhood. Turns out she was born in the wrong body. You know, as a dude.”
“She’s trans?”
“Yeah.”
I have to admit, I’m impressed. It’s hard enough being homosexual in the South. Throw in gender issues and “the normals” lose their minds. Being straight and confidently dating a trans woman? That’s hard-core self-confidence for a guy from a neighborhood like Deuces’s.
“A few people have seen us out and I’ve been getting grief. I can tell you this because you don’t care—I like her, but man, it’s scary in my neighborhood to fly different.”
“Scarier for her,” I say.
“Yeah.” He lowers his voice even further. “We talk all the time. I don’t care what she’s got going on. I’m chill with it. But we’ve got to watch ourselves around my neighborhood and keep it on the down-low.”
I shrug. “I’ve never worried too much about what other people think. Figure living my truth and finding my happy place counts for way more than random opinions.”
Turns out, those are words for me to prove. Levi picks me up and we go for pizza first—pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers—then head farther out to Carolina Lanes. It’s a long way from home just like he promised, so when I go to switch my low tops out for the bowling shoes I always want to steal, I’m surprised to see this girl I sort of know from the Carolina Youth Pride events me and Vivi had gone to.
“Hey.” The girl leans on the counter next to me. “I know you, right?”
“Uh, I think. Yeah. I’m Jess.”
“You still dating that same girl?”
I do not want to open the can of worms that comes with telling a random person Vivi died. There are the sad eyes and the stricken face. Then the “Oh, I’m sorry, are you okay, what happened?” And my inevitable emotional reaction. So it
feels wrong, but I shake my head. “No. Not anymore.”
The girl looks at me a little more intensely. “No? Oh.” Then she turns her body toward me.
Right then, Levi walks up. “Hey, got your shoes yet?” He leans on the counter, oblivious to the subtle scene playing out.
The girl looks past me to Levi, then back at me, and just as quick as she landed next to my counter space, she disappears. It gives me a weird feeling inside. Like she thinks I’m straight or something. I want to walk after her, grab her arm, tell her she’s got the wrong idea. But Levi’s bouncing in his shoes, talking smack about how he’s going to break three hundred on the scoreboard, and I let it go.
Tonight, I’m here to bowl.
With my friend. Who happens to be a dude. Who told me I was pretty. Who reassured me this wasn’t a date.
Why did he feel like he needed to say that?
23
Then: Surrounded by Birds, a Pair of Binoculars in Your Hand
I wanted a date. A point in time that I could circle on the calendar with stars and hearts and exclamation points. “What about our anniversary?” My hand, which was desperately trying to sneak beneath the drawstring waistband of Vivi’s favorite cotton pajama bottoms, was being blocked at every entry point.
“Cliché,” Vivi said. Then she grabbed my hand and pushed it away. “You’re being sort of annoying.”
“Fine.” I opened my hand flat against the sweet curve of her stomach.
We shifted, lying nose to nose on the couch at the lake house, our legs twined like vines. Every part of me was alert with want. Our intimacy had grown over the past ten months, from subtle touches of hands, to sweet soft kisses, to kisses that felt like Vivi was engulfing my soul, kisses that burned and awakened parts of me and left me aching for so much more. Vivi, on the other hand, was not ready for anything below the panty line.
But, our one-year anniversary was coming up and I hoped that maybe, since it was such a monumental occasion, I could finagle some consent. “If that’s cliché, then why not keep going right now? Your parents are gone for the day.” I snugged Vivi closer so there was no space between us, and pressed the lower half of my body tight against her. Vivi let out the tiniest breathy cry.
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