Just Shelby

by Brooklyn James

  “Okay, yes, you are a good son, a good man. Make good decisions. Be safe. There’s food in the fridge. Call me if you need anything.” When she kisses my cheek and hugs me, she holds on a bit tighter and longer. “I wish I could put into words what the extra talks and time with you lately have meant to me. Who would’ve thought that your first love would bring us closer together.”

  I can tell by the timbre of her voice and the texture of her hug that she is holding back tears and holding onto guilt for leaving, holding onto me now for all the times she couldn’t or for all the times I wouldn’t let her. You’re such a good mom, Shelby told her. Something that someone like Shelby would never take for granted, I have.

  “You were my first love, Mom,” I whisper. “Thank you, for everything.”

  The drugs must still be messing with my mind because this has to be unreal.

  People live like this?

  Twenty-four floors up and five thousand square feet, who needs this much room. An interior of white, gold, marble, leather, and quartz—everything dazzles. Breathtaking, it is overwhelming, too much for the eye to capture in a thousand glances.

  A boundless open floor plan bordered by panoramic windows makes the night skyline seem eerily accessible. Like I could burst through the window and jump from roof to roof, literally experiencing the high life.

  It is not the penthouse, but you couldn’t convince me of that.

  “Your mom manages this on a nurse’s salary?” I could study medicine for this.

  “Old money does,” Ace says, flatly. “van den Berg’s family has more than they’ll spend in generations.”

  “It’s…” I search for the appropriate word.

  “Ridiculous, unnecessary, over the top, sickening,” Ace answers for me.

  I was going to settle on “remarkable.” But he has a point. A stark contrast to how everyone in Poke County lives, a stark contrast to how most live throughout the world, it is outrageous.

  “Remember Ephraim Grainger, in elementary school. The one who ran outside to pee behind a tree when there was a perfectly good restroom inside. The teachers always said, ‘Don’t pay him any mind…’”

  “‘…He doesn’t know any better,’” I finish the broadly accepted thought.

  “van den Berg doesn’t either,” Ace says.

  In the master bath—a room as big as Grandpa’s entire house—I feel spoiled.

  Although you wouldn’t have to twist my arm to get used to it.

  I feel wasteful too. Alone in a full and bubbly Jacuzzi tub that, judging from the matching empty hydromassaging backrest catty-corner to mine, was built for two.

  At my house in a tub built for one, we do not bathe together, but we do share bathwater. Unlike van den Berg and Ephraim Grainger, we know better. We also know that water and the electricity required to heat it are in fact hot commodities. I wonder if anything here is conserved.

  Ace sits in the doorway, his back to one frame and his feet propped up against the other, ensuring modesty but present should I need him. He couldn’t see anything if he tried. The distance from the doorway to the Jacuzzi must be a quarter of a football field. The gargantuan tub engulfs me, nothing but my face visible over the side.

  “How do you feel?” he asks.

  “Hungover, maybe.” If I knew what a hangover felt like, this has to be it. A dull headache and lethargic, my brain not quite my own, the drugs aren’t completely gone. Or are they? Does this feeling indicate that I want more of them. That my body thinks it needs them, the way my mother’s apparently does.

  “Give it a few more hours. And the shoulder?”

  “It’s throbbing a little.” A lot.

  “It’s the hot water. Increases circulation. Makes everything that aches ache worse.” He would know, all the aches he has endured from fighting. “You need a Tylenol or something?”

  “No,” my tongue is quick to answer before even considering it.

  “Let’s get you out of there. Put some ice on it. That’ll slow the blood flow, ease the ache.”

  Aye aye, Dr. Cooper. Music isn’t his only talent. He waterproofed my splint in cling wrap and tape so that I could bathe in the first place. “I just haven’t figured out how to wash my hair yet with one hand.”

  “I can do that.” He shrugs. “If you’re okay with it.”

  The bubbles are disguising everything I would want them to. “Um…okay, sure…please.”

  “Good?” he says, lathering shampoo that smells like it should be used while twenty-four floors up.

  “Great.” Sooo much better than good.

  No one has washed my hair for me since I was a child. Even then it didn’t feel like the treat that it does now. Why is it that my scalp never tingles when I do it myself.

  When he rinses it with the gold-plated hand showerhead that resembles the shape of an old rotary phone handle, it sends more tingles from my scalp and over my shoulders to the ends of my toes. And when I open my eyes, I see that he feels it too.

  His lips saturate themselves in the water from mine, a kiss more spine-tingling than the hair washing. “Do you remember what you said to me? In the hospital. After the drugs. During traction.”

  I don’t. But if it makes him look at me the way he does now, I should say it again.

  “Up you go,” he digresses, unfurling a towel as big as my bed sheet.

  Holding it to his chin—a physical and visual barrier—he wraps it around me as I stand, nothing seen. I think I moan. Neither scratchy nor thin enough to see through in parts, the towel feels as creamy as its color. Like I’m wearing dessert.

  “In case I haven’t said it yet, thank you.” My voice speaks from the heart, breathy and quaking with gratitude, exponential adoration. I say it with everything in me, for everything he has done for me, for everything he is to me. But maybe I’ve already said it?

  No. That wasn’t it. Who gets excited about “thank you.”

  Those three little words—that’s what I said. That’s what people say when they feel the way I feel about Ace. But I wanted to say it differently.

  I’ve considered words, one-liners, something original that would quantify my feelings for him. Like an equation with too many variables, it is immeasurable, indefinable.

  Why did it take drugs to say it at all.

  Because I was overthinking it. Would I feel the same about him exclusive of the situation I am in. Is it love or some “savior complex.” He is making a habit of being there to catch me.

  Because I was waiting on him to say it first.

  People assume that girls—women—are loose with “I love you.” That we always say it, feel it, first. I read a study in a psychology journal in the library at school that says people shouldn’t assume. Women aren’t the hopeless romantics we are perceived to be in books and movies. We are logical. Thoughtful and cautious when it comes to matters of the heart. On average, boys—men—actually say it and feel it first.

  But I said it first. Forcing, implying, pressuring the reciprocal commitment. Forever losing my chance of finding out when he would have said it. If he would have.

  Damn cocktail.

  After icing her shoulder, I get her settled into bed.

  California King with Turkish cotton sheets, goose down comforter with a thread count higher than my SAT score, and more pillows than the number of people who could actually fit in the damn bed—it is ridiculous too. Especially for a kid who sleeps here once a year.

  At least the pillows have a purpose on this night. They prop up Shelby and her shoulder. The doctor said keeping it elevated above her heart will help with the throbbing.

  “That one. I’ll put that one right here, under my splint,” she says, pointing at the ugly duckling in the group. A pillow encased in patchwork preemie clothes that Mom made for me.

  Other than the time and effort to make the pillow, it is the cheapest thing in this room, the cheapest thing in this five-thousand-square-foot space. Yet it is the most valuable. Even Shelby knows it, choos
ing it specifically.

  Proving my point that van den Berg—people who live like him—has no other measure than a price tag in knowing what is important. Mom deserves better.

  “Baby clothes?” Shelby questions, her eyes and hands carefully experiencing the pillow.

  “Preemie clothes,” I clarify, propping up beside her.

  “Pink and purple, too?” She notices the few more feminine tones throughout. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I wear blue and green. It’s a silly thing, really. This color is for boys. This color is for girls,” she says in a mockingly chauvinistic tone.

  “Mom used to say she added those in for a ‘broader palette.’ But I bet if I asked her now, she’d say they were yours.”

  “Kinnected,” she whispers.

  “Cut from the same cloth,” I can’t help myself. I ha-ha and so does she. But it’s the truth. The two of us in this bed, in this place—two fish out of water—it has never been more clear that we share a similar life experience, similar fundamental values.

  Maybe it wouldn’t matter where we ended up or what we did, who we met along the way or how our lives changed. Mining in Poke County or committing to the indeterminate road of musical success—wherever it takes me—while she takes a more fixed route to college. Could our shared experience and values provide the tubes and wires to forever bind us.

  “It’s so soft.” Her hand traces and rubs the textures over and over.

  “Softer than the towel?” I do some mocking of my own. The sexy little moan she gave when I wrapped it around her still seduces my ears, among other things.

  “Softer in a different way,” she says with a giggle.

  For a fish out of water, she sure is enjoying herself here. It reminds me of that day outside Hot Brown when she cranked the music up and let her hair down and danced. I can see it and feel it: she’s content.

  Maybe it’s just relief, a break from reality. Being out of her house, out of Poke County, far enough away from her mother not to think about her and the shit she causes. For all this place isn’t, it is an escape from reality.

  “It smells good too. Like the t-shirt you loaned me.” She pulls the neck of it up to her nose and inhales.

  This only adds to the seduction, or gives me a bad case of t-shirt envy. If that’s even a thing. My t-shirt enjoys second base—direct physical contact with her bare flesh—in one night, while I’ve been pussyfooting around first base for the past month.

  As if the green-eyed monster is visible in my gaze, Shelby frees her mouth of the t-shirt and pulls me in close. Kissing may be first base, but this one feels like a prelude to a grand slam. Different from the others, free of inhibition, she holds nothing back.

  “Can’t we just stay here forever?” Her lungs fill with air as she presses the back of her head into goose down pillows pressed into a tufted leather headboard, her hand pressing on her sore shoulder.

  My shoulders rise and fall with the same fervor. That has to hurt her. No more kissing, dammit.

  “Right here in this room. Doing things that people do in rooms like this. Letting their bodies express what they cannot put into words.”

  What will she do when she leaves here? Where will she go? With whom will she live? And, my god, what would her body say? I clear my throat and attempt to clear my mind.

  “Mom did say we could stay here as long as we want.”

  Another moan, not seductive but mournful, travels out of her the way a desert traveler discovers that water is only a mirage. Even in this place of skewed reality, she quickly identifies wishful thinking.

  “Oh, no, the mine. Your shift.” Her head swivels in the direction of the Bose music/alarm system—the only thing worth its price tag in this room—on the bedside table. It’s 2:30am. If I left right now, I might make my shift. “Your dad is going to kill you…or me.”

  “I’m pretty sure Mom already took care of that.” Funny, he’ll take it from her but not from me. “I might not go back, anyway. I’ve worked up enough covers, and a few originals, to maybe start gigging here on the weekends.” If anyone will have me, give me a chance. “Mom’s been helping me look for venues.”

  “Seriously? You’re gonna do it. Ohmygosh! But…wait. You’re just telling me this now?” She gives me a look that says I thought we were in a place of sharing—hopes and dreams and secrets, good or bad.

  Secrets. I still haven’t told her about Johnny. Why didn’t I blurt it out when I had the chance, when she couldn’t believe that his name was on the title. It was the perfect cue: His name is on the title because the Shelby belongs to him. So do you, biologically. I chickened out. How was she supposed to process that fact on top of what her mother did.

  “What if they hate me? Throw beer bottles at me. Boo me off the stage.” Again, I didn’t tell her what I should have because I got cold fucking feet. If I’m a musical failure, she doesn’t need to know.

  “I get it.” She lets me off the hook. “It’s the same reason I don’t want you at any of my meets. Guess I can’t stand the thought of not being first in your eyes. Besides, they are going to love you.” She says “love” the same way she did in the hospital after the drugs, like she really means it.

  Could we stay here forever?

  “If I drum up enough regular gigs to stay here on the weekends, maybe you could too. Bet you could make as much in a weekend here waiting tables as you could in a month at Hot Brown. More money for college,” I entice. More of a chance to make up the amount she may never get back from her mother and that asshat Billy Don. “Mom would go for it. So long as we don’t…um…well, you know. So long as we respect her rules.” I’d like to think that I don’t roll my eyes the way my female counterparts do, but I just did.

  Is that why I avoid staying here? Because there are rules. The only expectation Pop has is the mine. Lately, I haven’t done well obeying that one. If I quit altogether, I might be staying here indefinitely. Would he kick me out?

  “Your mom is the best.”

  “She is, isn’t she.” Why did it take Shelby, seeing her through Shelby’s eyes, for me to realize it.

  “I couldn’t impose on her like that. Especially not after she’s been so good to me.”

  “Impose? She was you, Shelby.” Only with a different set of circumstances. “She understands that drive, desire, whatever it is, you have to improve yourself, to improve your life. If anyone can help you, guide you through that process, Mom can. It’ll be like a project. She’ll love it.”

  “‘A project,’” Shelby repeats, offended.

  Speaking of secrets, I have a hunch that that preppy college schmuck she meets with from time to time is the reason behind the offense. Come, join my cause. Let me show you how to be a pillar of society. When she’s the one doing all the legwork.

  “Rules…respect…go,” she rallies and yawns at the same time. “I can’t hold my eyes open much longer.”

  But we aren’t even doing anything. Shelby can’t be here without my being near her. It’d be easier to burst through the window and fall twenty-four floors. So maybe Mom wouldn’t go for it. I start stacking pillows on this floor, as close to the bed as possible.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Sleeping on the floor.” What does it look like I’m doing.

  “When there’s a perfectly ‘ridiculous’ sofa right there?”

  As oversized and leathery and tufted as the headboard, it is ridiculous. Who has a sofa in their bedroom. Although it may have saved my back or my life tonight.

  “Are you okay? Did they slip you a cocktail too.” She giggles. How could I have missed the unmissable sofa.

  “Hell no, I’m not okay.” Retrieved from the armrest, I wrestle with an equally ridiculous blanket—wild animals and a caveman? “Christian Dior” over and over around the fringe, I guess he didn’t want it missed that he made the damn thing.

  “You’re in my room and in my sheets and in my clothes. My things have held more of you than I have. And I’m s
upposed to be focused on the sofa?” I flop down on it, the entire blanket covering half of my body. van den Berg overpaid. Two grand for a leg warmer!

  “You’re cute. Sexy. Particularly in that blanket.” She bites her lip to contain a laugh. “Let me get this shoulder healed up and you’ll have more of me to hold than you can handle.”

  Whatever. She doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. How can a person know what they’re missing when they’ve never had it. I know what I’m missing. And with her it would be out of this world. It would mean more than it ever has.

  Clearly why we can’t do it. She’s not ready. And I can’t—I won’t—push her. But there is a part of me that wants to. I hate that part of me. So fucking weak and needy.

  “G’night, Shelby.”

  “Goodnight, Ace.”

  “Alexa, turn off Ace’s bedroom,” I mumble, embarrassed by the luxury.

  The motorized shades lower with the lights. It is pitch dark and quiet in the middle of the illuminated city. The only sound is Shelby’s bemused titter.

  “That was out of this world,” she whispers.

  Nope. It wasn’t. Not that. See!

  I cover my head with the pillow and burrow into the couch.

  On the way out of the city, I feel it—the un-tickling of myself pink. Bereft of the walls of that unreal apartment, bereft of the energy and opportunity of the city, the reality of what I must return to and of what I have done snakes through me—winding and recurring—like the wheels on the road.

  “Stay healthy. Injury is quick to make a recruiter think twice,” Coach Payne said.

  If I follow the doctor’s orders—give my shoulder time to heal, rehab it appropriately—I will be running again in six weeks. I am young and fit, she said. Rehab, rehab, rehab, she could not stress enough while handing me a pamphlet of appropriate exercises, and I will have a lifetime of running.

  I didn’t tell her that I don’t have a lifetime to run. I had a week to run my best at the state cross country meet. I had a week to convince Coach Payne that I was at least worth the unofficial meet and greet. That I was worth an official meet and greet.