This Is Home

by Lisa Duffy

  I have no idea how she and Lucy are sisters.

  When she’s standing again, she walks over to me and leans in close, glancing behind her and turning her back to Sully.

  “What did he say about me?” she whispers.

  “Who?”

  “Sully. Who do you think? The least you can do is pay attention. Is he mad? I mean, on a scale of one to ten—ten’s the worst—how mad is he at me?”

  I have no idea how to answer this question, because Sully never seems mad. Just confused. As though life isn’t working out the way he planned, and he has absolutely no idea why.

  But I try to put it in context.

  “Two,” I tell her. “And mad isn’t the right word. Exasperated. Apprehensive. Sort of anxious. But hopeful, I think.”

  Desiree looks at me blankly. The same look Sully gave me.

  “Two’s not bad,” she says, and I nod.

  I can tell she’s not done grilling me about Sully, though, so when Bent comes through the front door of the bowling alley, I jump off the stool and join him.

  He leans down and kisses me on the cheek, but from the look on his face, he’s annoyed.

  “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” he asks.

  “The battery died. I didn’t realize until a minute ago.”

  He doesn’t like this answer, but it’s better than telling him I was ignoring him.

  I wait for the lecture on how having a phone is a privilege—one that I have because he wants to be able to get in touch with me, and it’s my responsibility to keep my phone charged and the ringer on.

  But he just looks over at his team.

  “Are we still losing?” he asks. “We better not be. For Christ’s sake, we’re playing Revere, and they’ve got a guy who’s half-blind.”

  “Partially sighted,” I correct.

  “What?” he barks at me.

  “That’s what it’s called. We learned it in health class.”

  He rolls his eyes and walks to where his team is sitting, and I follow. There’s a round of applause when they see him, and somebody yells, Papa’s in the house, and there’s a beer in his hand before he even sits down to take off his shoes.

  “I thought your detail ended at six?” I ask.

  “I stopped at home to feed Rooster,” Bent says.

  I look at the clock on the wall. “It’s seven thirty. What took so long?”

  “I got hung up. Hand me those shoes.”

  “Hung up doing what?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m next,” he says, taking his bowling shoes from me. I can tell by the way he blinks fast that he’s not telling me something.

  Rooster eats his dinner in a minute flat, and he does his business just as quick.

  When Bent texted me earlier, I asked him three times: Where are you? Each time, he answered: Update on score?

  He’s never late to anything, especially not bowling.

  But I can tell by the look on his face that he’s only going to get mad if I keep asking questions while he’s rushing to get ready.

  “Do you care if I go?” I ask him now, before he gets up for his turn. “Flynn said he could come get me.”

  Bent frowns. “Why Flynn? What about your pack of girlfriends?”

  We’ve had this same conversation all summer. By pack he means Erin and Katie, my two best friends since grade school. They both live across town in the wealthier section of Paradise, and they both leave for their family beach houses after school gets out. I’ve been friends with Flynn for almost as long, but every time I mention him lately, it’s as though Bent’s surprised we’re friends.

  “Katie’s at her Cape house and Erin’s on the Vineyard. You know they go all summer.”

  “Why is Flynn around, then?” he asks, as though one has anything to do with the other.

  “What do you mean? Where should he be?”

  “He’s always around. You spend too much time with him.”

  “He’s my friend. Why wouldn’t I spend time with him?”

  “Doesn’t he have a summer house he can go to?”

  “He lives a street away from us,” I explain.

  Bent looks like he might argue, but he doesn’t bother. If you come from our section of town, chances are you don’t have a summer house.

  Someone calls out Bent’s name, and he looks over my shoulder.

  “It’s my turn,” he says. “Tell Flynn to keep his hands to himself.”

  “We’re just friends—for, like, the millionth time.”

  “Tell him anyway. From me,” he says, and walks up to take his turn.

  The bowling alley is loud now, the music cranked up. “Sweet Caroline” blares through the speakers. Some of the guys from a team named Schweaty Bowls are standing on a bench, shouting along with the chorus, using their beer bottles as microphones.

  I walk over to the bar and wave goodbye to Desiree, who’s in the middle of handing a plate of food to a customer, but she holds up a finger for me to wait and then gestures for me to meet her at the service station. When I do, she leans in close.

  “Where you going?” she yells over the noise.

  I tell her I’m leaving with Flynn; she puts her hand on her heart.

  “Aw, my handsome guy. Tell him I miss him,” she shouts just as the music stops, and Sully frowns and walks over to us.

  “What handsome guy?” he asks me. “You got a boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends.”

  Sully laughs. “Sure you are.”

  “What’s with you and my father?” I ask. “You’re, like, from the dark ages.”

  “We may be old dudes now, but we were your age once.” Sully says this as though he’s an expert on people my age, and Desiree scowls at him.

  She picks my bag off the bar and shoves it at me. “Go. Don’t stand here listening to this garbage.”

  She turns to Sully, who looks sorry he ever opened his big mouth.

  “What are you trying to teach her? That a guy only wants to hang out with her if he’s interested in her? That her value is purely sexual and has nothing to do with the fact that he might like her company. Her personality!”

  Sully puts his hands up. “Here we go. Another f-bomb assault.”

  Desiree gives me a disgusted look. “That’s what he calls feminism. The f-bomb.”

  “No,” Sully corrects. “It’s only the f-bomb with you because you blow men up with it. All I’m saying is teenage boys are horny, and you turn it around. Make me look like some sort of knuckle-walking ape.”

  “I wouldn’t insult an ape like that,” Desiree snaps.

  Before they go at it another round, I pat Sully on the arm and give Desiree another wave and slip away. Her voice follows me, ranting at Sully again, until the music turns on, and I’m out the door, the noise fading behind me.

  Outside, the boardwalk is slick, the weathered wooden slats glossy under the dome lights above. It must have rained while I was in the bowling alley, and now the air is suffocating, the heat wave going on its second week now.

  Flynn is waiting in his car at the curb. I get in the passenger seat and turn to him and squint at his head.

  “What’s on your head?”

  “What do you mean?” He looks in the rearview mirror, as though he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

  Flynn’s in his usual clothes. Basketball shorts and a T-shirt, but his hair is pulled back and tied in a knot on the back of his head.

  “I mean the man bun.”

  “Stop looking at me like that. It’s a thing.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “Well, Anna likes it,” he says, and I roll my eyes at him.

  “Here we go again,” I say.

  He puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb before he looks at me. “What?”

  “Last month, you almost shaved your head because Karen wanted you to—”

  “Ka-RINN,” he interrupts. “You say it wrong every time.”

 
“I’m saying it just like you.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “You say Karen. KA-ren. And it’s Ka-RINN. Hear the difference?”

  I stare at him until he shrugs and motions for me to continue.

  “The month before that, it was Shelly, and you were obsessed with yoga because she was into it.”

  “So, I like to please my women.” He winks. “What’s the crime in that?”

  “Your what? Gross.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m just kidding. Since when are you such a prude?” He smirks at me and when I don’t smile, he sighs.

  Flynn turned eighteen in the beginning of the summer, and his cousin got him a job covering shifts behind the bar when they’re shorthanded at Roscoe’s. It’s a popular hangout for college kids, and now it seems like he has a new girlfriend every month.

  “It’s not like I’m sleeping around. It’s harmless,” he says.

  This is new territory for us. We’ve been friends since middle school, and I’ve known just about every girl he’s had a crush on. But they were always out of his league. Before this year, he was just a skinny kid with arms too long for his body, a good jump shot, and a decent enough smile under a mouthful of metal. Then he grew to over six feet and became the star forward on our varsity basketball team. His face cleared up and his braces came off and everything just seemed to fit into place, like the pieces of a puzzle. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  Now that he’s dating, it’s all he talks about.

  Until he gets tired of whatever girl he’s into and hangs around me for a week until he gets a new crush.

  So far this summer, it’s happened three times.

  “Do your women even know your age? Or are you lying to them?”

  “You say it like I’m underage and hitting on old ladies. Anna is twenty-one.”

  “I mean more that you’re still in high school. They don’t think that’s creepy?”

  “Technically, I shouldn’t be. If my mother hadn’t kept me back in first grade, I’d be starting college in the fall.”

  I tilt my head at him. I’ve heard this argument before. “So you are lying to them.”

  He turns onto my street and pulls over to the curb. “How many times have I had to listen to Katie or Erin or you go on and on about some guy? And now that it’s me, it’s not cool?”

  I don’t answer because his voice has an edge to it and it settles somewhere in my stomach. Flynn and I never fight. And it’s all we’ve done the last few months.

  Maybe he’s right. I’m used to Katie or Erin disappearing when they get a boyfriend. But Flynn is always there. Or he used to be, at least.

  “Point taken,” I tell him now, and his face softens, back to normal.

  The car is still running, and I open the door, expecting him to follow, but he doesn’t move.

  “I thought we were going to watch a movie?” I say, looking back at him.

  “I can’t. Something came up.”

  His phone dings and he doesn’t answer it, and I know it’s this new girl, Anna. Who likes guys with man buns.

  “Something better, you mean.”

  “Don’t be like that. Come on.”

  “Fine. Be careful.”

  “Oh, Plural,” he says. “Get lost. I’ll call you later.”

  I get out of the car, and he drives away, toots the horn as a goodbye.

  Bent didn’t leave the porch light on and the house is dark and uninviting. I should go upstairs and take Rooster Cogburn out one last time, but I know he’s sleeping on his back, upside down on the couch. He’ll be impossible to get up without luring him with a treat, and in this heat, I’m not up for the challenge.

  I climb the steps to the porch landing and sit on the top step. Up the street, Flynn is stopped, waiting for the light to turn green, and I watch his taillights until he pulls away and disappears, the way he said Plural stuck in my head.

  It’s a nickname he gave me the day we became friends.

  It was the first day of sixth grade. We were sitting in homeroom, alphabetically, with name tags on our desks. Mine said Winter, the S missing.

  Flynn was sitting in the desk in front of me, and I was in the last seat in the row—typical unless Sean Yablonski or Emma Zabel were in class with me.

  Flynn and I were friendly, but not friends. Since we shared the same last name except for one letter, we’d been sitting next to each other in classes since the first grade.

  On this day, Mrs. Belcher was up front, calling out names from an attendance sheet. I was drawing circles on the side of my notebook when I heard her call out “Flynn Winter.”

  “Here,” Flynn said.

  “Elizabeth Winter,” she said, not looking up from the paper.

  “It’s Libby,” I called out. “Winters.”

  Mrs. Belcher looked up and squinted through her thick glasses. She was a crabby old lady who never smiled and shuffled more than walked. The boys hated her because she gave detentions if you spoke above a whisper. The girls avoided her because she’d send you to the assistant principal for inappropriate clothing if she so much as glimpsed a bra strap. Behind her back, everyone called her Belchmeister.

  This was her last year before she retired, and Katie and I had groaned when we saw on our schedules that she was our homeroom teacher.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Belchers squawked. “Speak up!”

  Katie was in the next row over, and she whipped her head around and looked over at me, her eyes wide.

  “Over here,” I said loudly, lifting my arm.

  Mrs. Belcher was so short I had to lean to the side to see past Flynn. She shuffled forward, her eyes finding me finally in the last seat in the back.

  “Stop mumbling,” she said. “Why is your hand up?”

  I lowered my hand. “You said Elizabeth Winter. I was just saying that I go by Libby. And my last name is Winters.”

  “Is your name Elizabeth?” she screeched, and I thought I saw Flynn flinch.

  “It’s Elizabeth. Libby . . . but . . .”

  “Stop speaking.” She looked down at her sheet, marked her paper with a shaky hand. “I don’t concern myself with nicknames, Ms. Winter. I’ll address you as Elizabeth, and you’ll answer as such.”

  She turned and walked back to her desk. “Silent reading until the bell rings,” she said to the class. “Not a word from anyone.”

  Katie looked over at me with a see, I told you so face, and I stuck my tongue out at her and slid a knee under myself so I was sitting up higher.

  “It’s Winters,” I said loudly, and Katie slid down in her seat, covered her face with her hands, and shook her head.

  In front of me, Flynn turned and stared at me.

  “Is someone speaking when I said quiet?” Mrs. Belcher scanned the classroom. No one looked up.

  “It’s still me,” I said. “Libby . . . Elizabeth.”

  “I know your name, Ms. Winter, and you need to stop interrupting.” She looked down at her desk again.

  I looked over at Katie, and she mouthed, Just forget it.

  There were signs all over our school about bullying. This old witch apparently hadn’t read them.

  “Mrs. Belcher. You keep saying Winter, and that’s not my last name.”

  “If you have a last name that is different than what I called, you don’t belong in this class.” She waved her hand at me, dismissing me. “Go to the office and let them figure it out.”

  “I’m on your sheet,” I pressed, and Flynn collapsed in his seat so hard the desk shook. Katie moaned. “You’re just not saying it right,” I told her.

  “I’m not saying it right?” Mrs. Belcher asked, as though I’d said pigs could fly.

  “I’m Winters. Plural,” I said. “He’s Winter. Singular.”

  I pointed to myself. “Plural,” I said, and touched Flynn on the shoulder. “Singular.”

  Flynn’s forehead was pressed firmly to his desk. I didn’t think he was breathing anymore.

  Mrs. Belche
r cleared her throat and straightened in her seat.

  “Elizabeth. Your grammar is atrocious. I’m not saying it . . . not right—I’m pronouncing it incorrectly.” She looked at me over her glasses. “Do you understand, Elizabeth?”

  I nodded, and she leaned forward.

  “Repeat after me, Elizabeth: I’m pronouncing it incorrectly.”

  “I’m pronouncing it incorrectly,” I repeated, and Flynn sat up and squeezed his nostrils together, suffocating a laugh.

  “Thank you, Ms. Winterssss,” she replied, lingering on the S for so long that Flynn let out a laugh that he disguised as a hacking cough.

  Flynn found me in the cafeteria later that day. He put a cookie down on my tray, gave me a salute.

  You earned this, Plural, he said, taking the seat next to me and across from Katie and Erin.

  Flynn talked about it that whole year. How brave he thought I was. How anyone in their right mind would have gone down to the office instead of taking on the Belchmeister.

  Now, sitting on the steps, the red of his taillights disappearing and darkness filling the street, I hear him say it again.

  Plural. Get lost.

  I wasn’t sure when things had changed. How these days, when he used my nickname, it meant: stop talking. It meant: go away.

   6

  Quinn

  There is a baby inside of her.

  She suspected as much after she pushed Nate on the swing and watched him sail into the sky in front of her, and the ground beneath her feet shifted. Black dots hemmed her vision, and the orange juice she gulped back earlier in the kitchen was suddenly in her throat, and she barely made it to the trash barrel before she threw it up.

  She hung on to the edge of the barrel to keep her knees from giving out.

  It wasn’t until after she dropped the boys off for the night that she took the pregnancy test. When the plus sign showed in the tiny window on the stick, she submerged herself into the tepid water in her small tub in her strange new bathroom and closed her eyes.

  Five years had passed since she miscarried, but she remembered this feeling so vividly, so precisely, it was as though she’d been pregnant her whole life and not just once, years ago, for eleven short weeks. The motion sickness. The fullness of her breasts. The insatiable desire to lie down. It all came back to her.