by Olivia Janae
Kate shrugged. “On my way home from a gig.” She wanted to add a joke about the fact that she wasn’t stalking her, but somehow it seemed like the joke wouldn’t land as well as it would have in the past.
Charlie nodded, her hand absently rubbing at a spot on her neck. “Cool.” And then she strangely added, “I like this market. Lots of options.”
“Right.” Kate agreed because it was what she was supposed to do. “Yeah. It’s, it’s a good one.”
“Vivian likes it, too.”
“Oh?” What did that mean?
“Yeah. So don’t make it so she can’t come here anymore.”
Kate just stared at Charlie, her mind shocked completely blank.
She had no idea how to respond to that. “Yes, ma’am, I promise to stay away from the store…” “Whatever you say, your highness.” What the hell?
The silence choked Kate with embarrassment and anger. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be just as rude as Charlie’s open and inappropriate hostility.
Charlie took a step to the left, about to give a polite apology and excuse for leaving.
Kate internally swore.
“Well, thanks for that hot tip, but actually” – the idea was flying out of her frustrated mouth before she could even think about it – “I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been meaning to text you. Do you have a recommendation for a good ASL teacher?”
Charlie’s eyebrows rose incredulously, and Kate gave a nervous laugh. She wasn’t sure how to explain that she had continued to study, that she was studying harder now than she had before.
“You want a rec for a local teacher?”
Kate shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
Charlie’s look turned to frost. “God, when I’m wrong about someone, I’m really wrong about them.”
“What does that mean?
“Nothing. I gotta go.”
“You’re really not going to tell me?”
“About another ASL teacher? I dunno, K, I have a gig, but can you tell me about another cellist? I don’t want to use you.”
The example stung. “Well, you stopped responding to my texts and calls, so…”
Charlie just glared.
“Hey man,” Kate said, “I’m happy to work with you if you are open to it, but you’re the one who stopped talking to me, remember?”
Charlie gave her a long onceover, lingering at the bags under her eyes from one too many sleepless nights. Kate could see the woman warring with herself, her eyes going hard and then soft, her empty hand opening and closing. Finally, she gave a grudging, “I’ll think about it.”
Kate wasn’t sure how well her plan had worked when she left the store ten minutes later, but she did think that if she texted Charlie about a lesson she might hear something back.
Maybe.
Kate yelped loudly as her thighs hit the turnstile with a sharp, loud grind. The paper to-go cup buckled in on itself under the pressure of her abrupt stop, and coffee poured over her arm and across her chest with a blazing heat. She hissed, clenching her teeth until the painful burning passed. Overhead, she could hear the rumble of the train approaching. Even if she were to run now she wouldn’t make it up the long flight of stairs in time. Still she tried, swiping her ‘L’ card once, twice more before it finally read. Despite the fact that she was dripping her fairly expensive Columbian roast, Kate took off, leaping up the slippery stairs two at a time.
“Hold the door!” she yelled, the last bit of coffee splashing over the side and burning her wrist as she vaulted onto the platform just in time to watch the doors close. Inside a man gave her an apologetic shrug before turning away.
“Really?” she yelled at him, but the train was already slipping away. “Shit.”
Just like Chicago, Kate thought as she tossed the cup in the platform trash can. Doing her best to wring out her shirt, she ignored the sympathetic looks from other platform patrons. Her skin was red and achy, and she had a stitch in her side. She worked out, she liked to work out, but she had just done an unplanned Rocky stair climb.
Damn it, she was going to be late. Charlie was going to kill her.
It had taken Kate the last two weeks of March to convince Charlie to begin their lessons again, and now she would be late for the first one and covered in coffee.
This was her life now. Try as Kate liked, everything was just slightly off. Heading to work her train would arrive a few minutes early, so she would be forced to watch it go by on the platform above as she ran up the street, cello rapping harshly on the back of her knees.
Sometimes, the train would instead run severely late, causing her to jump up and down in anxiety until it arrived and then force her way into the already packed car only to arrive five minutes late anyway. Often, she would go to her neighborhood café looking forward to her favorite spring blend, only to discover the person before her had received the last cup – and the café wouldn’t be receiving another shipment of coffee grounds until the following month. It was a constant stream of little things like that: movies she wanted were always rented out at her nearest Redbox; her freezer had broken, but not fully, so her landlord refused to replace it; her phone had been stolen; and more than once she had been accosted by a random homeless person who thought she was someone else.
She had never received more paper cuts, stubbed toes, or bumps on the head than she had since her depressing birthday disaster.
Chicago had never felt big, not after New York. Its urban sprawl had never intimidated her. Suddenly, though, as the numbers of her support circle dwindled back down to her son, the city seemed to grow, filling with jagged angles and packed sidewalks too busy to find room for her. She had said once that the city felt blue, and that had never been more true. It had been her friend before, beautiful and wise, and now it was cold, dark, damp. She had never felt quite as swallowed alive as she did now. She wasn’t sure, but she also thought it smelled worse and rained a lot more.
She had always been the immovable object that the unstoppable force could not jar, only now that force had shoved her out of place in her city. Try as she might, she couldn’t get back on track.
It made her wish she hadn’t turned down Louisville, just for a change of pace.
Nervously. Kate checked the time and sent Charlie a quick text:
“Missed the train. Covered in coffee. Be five late. – K”
Charlie’s response was as brisk as the last two weeks had taught Kate to expect:
“I have somewhere to go after your appointment so hurry up. I can’t give you extra time. – C”
Kate shoved her phone into her pocket, wincing at the sting Charlie had expressly meant for her to feel.
She groaned as she felt her pocket, the one she had stitched up numerous times, give and her phone slide through the pouch and into the pant leg of her skinny jeans.
Cursing, she began to jump in place, shaking her leg like a crazy person with fleas as she tried to work the device down to her ankle.
She pulled her phone from the tight space at her foot just as the newly arrived train’s doors began to close. She shot an arm through the space and grimaced as the metal bounced off her skin. Oh, well, she was on the train. It had filled while she was dancing around like an idiot, and now it was packed, leaving her nowhere to sit for the next hour.
She swore, tipping backward into the glass partition before she was ready and had to scramble to stay upright as the train launched her toward downtown.
Kate arrived at Charlie’s doorstep still damp from the coffee and huffing, pleased she was only two minutes late instead of five. “Hey, Char. I’m sorry I’m late.”
Eyes narrowed, Charlie opened the door to her apartment. “Clearly you have a reason. Don’t sit on my white couch.”
Kate sighed. She wasn’t even sure she needed lessons anymore. With no distractions like dating or wanting to impress a particularly pretty deaf woman, Kate’s understanding of the language had shot through the roof. Now she could hold standa
rd conversations with her son easily. She was fairly sure that outside of her ex-girlfriend there was little call for the language in her life, but she continued forward anyway with stubborn animosity, never forgetting the look on Vivian’s face as she challenged, “Go ahead, talk to me.” The next time she ran into a deaf person, she would be able to talk to them, assuming she could get over the sting of embarrassment she felt when she fumbled.
No, Kate had a reason she wanted to continue her lessons, and it was not necessarily because she was so interested in Sign Language. She just wanted the lessons because it was a good excuse to see Charlie again and, maybe if she tried hard enough, she could resurrect something of a friendship from the ashes. The issue was that she didn’t really know how that could work if Charlie wouldn’t let her guard down and stop being so damned angry with her. Unfortunately, anger for Kate was something that Charlie had in spades.
She had to do something. God knew she needed it to work. She couldn’t live life this alone.
“Right.” Charlie pulled two chairs from the corner and set them facing one another. “Do you remember where we were?”
The first lesson was all business. Every time Kate tried to stray to more personal topics or, in fact, any topic at all that was not Sign Language, Charlie’s eyes would narrow suspiciously, and she would turn to stone.
The second lesson later that week consisted of Charlie explaining more of the basics that Kate already knew, had known before the breakup. She went on and on about the structure of the language, about its foundation and style.
Kate hated it.
One of the things Kate had loved best about her friendship with Charlie was that they had seemed to understand each other from the very beginning. There had never been a phase of awkwardness or discomfort. They had met and instantly become friends. She wanted that back.
“No, that’s not the proper order,” Charlie scolded, harsher these days than she had ever been before. “Do it again.”
“Jesus.” Kate let her tired hands fall. “Char, I hate this. Come on, we were never like this.”
“Is that about Sign Language?” Charlie’s sharp chin jutted through the air, her eyes accusing.
“Charlie!”
“Kate, I told you I’m not going to talk to you about Vivian.”
“Fine. Let’s talk about our friendship. I didn’t do anything to you, so will you knock off the wronged woman routine, please?”
Charlie scoffed. “You didn’t do anything to me? You broke my best friend’s heart! That affects me an awful lot.”
Kate bit back sour words, wanting to shout that she didn’t care. That Vivian had been in the wrong, too. Instead she cried, “I wasn’t trying to change her! I was an idiot who got played by Jacqueline. I honestly thought that the implant would make Vivian happy! Yeah, also, I was not agreeing to torture deaf children. I didn’t even know about Jacqueline’s bitch of a gift until Vivian told me!”
She wasn’t sure exactly when the depression had finally evaporated, but it had. In its wake she had felt a new, condensed layer of anger. She had made a mistake, yes, but she was not going to sit there and let anyone tell her that she was the only one in the wrong, she refused!
“Whatever.” Charlie shook out her long, brown hair in defiance. “You’re paying me to teach you sign, let’s just work.”
“Fine!” Kate snapped back.
So they did – tensely – for two more lessons before Charlie exploded again.
“Why are you even here?” she cried in exasperation. “Clearly you’ve finally been practicing. Is this just a game to you? Why are you paying me?”
Kate scowled, letting her twisting hands drop. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“I don’t know!” Charlie all but shouted. “You tell me! God, what’s wrong with you?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think you’re talking about something else here now.”
“Of course I’m talking about something else!” Charlie sat with a thud on the couch, her arms crossed and glared at Kate. “I’m not teaching you anymore. I’m not so hard up for cash that I need to sit here and let you waste my time.”
Kate groaned, her head falling into her hands. “Look. This is dumb. Can we just – can we just talk? Please? Can I buy you lunch? I promise not to get dumped by your best friend or conned by your best friend’s mother until afterward,” she promised with sarcasm thick in her voice.
Kate could see at once that Charlie was going to say no, and not only that but she was going to be as mean as possible about it. She flinched, waiting, but then Charlie seemed to change her mind.
She let out a long sigh. “Fine. You’re buying.”
“So, you’re mad at me,” Kate said as she stuffed a few fries into her mouth. “I get it, everyone’s mad at me. Vivian’s mad at me, you’re mad at me, even Max is still a little mad at me. I’m mad at me.” She shrugged. “It’s the latest thing.”
“Well, you’re stupid.” Kate glared at her, insulted. Charlie shrugged and continued. “You are. Katelyn Flynn is stupid. That’s just how this little story goes.”
“Jesus, Charlie!” Kate put down her burger, feeling that ever-present anger flicker. “Can you take one minute to think about what was happening on my side of things? My girlfriend’s mother—her mother, Charlie—came to me saying this was something Vivian really wanted, and I had heard my girlfriend repeatedly say how hard her life had been as a hard of hearing person.
“I wasn’t trying to change her. I liked her very much the way she was! I thought I was bringing her something she wanted, which was all I wanted. I didn’t realize I would offend her. I didn’t realize that her mom was a total scheming bitch. She fed me this story about wanting to give her daughter everything and changing the way Vivian saw her. And then John was all ‘she’s her mom’ and ‘my mom always knows what’s best for me.’ I don’t have a mom, so I don’t know these things! I always kind of thought—”
She cut herself off. She didn’t need to explain to Charlie that she had always thought there was a kind person under Jacqueline’s frosty exterior. “I kind of thought mothers didn’t do shit like that. I would never do that to Max! I was an idiot for believing it, but I wasn’t trying to go behind Vivian’s back, I was trying to surprise her. I didn’t realize I was committing a terrible crime. Not until Vivian threw me in the freaking trash, that is.” She took a long breath and glared, waiting for Charlie’s response.
“Yeah, well, it is your fault for listening to Jacqueline. I think we made it pretty clear you shouldn’t do that. Besides, Vivian was right. You’re Jacqueline’s lap dog! She’s your benefactor now. What the hell, Kate?”
“Oh, and you haven’t gone to the opera yet this year?”
Charlie spluttered. “That’s different!”
“God! I have more to think about than you guys and your stupid feud with her, all right? If I tank the Lyric audition,” she said, “which is totally going to happen by the way, then she will find me more work. More work means I don’t have to move Max again. She’s been sending me gigs left and right, which means that for the first time in my life, Max and I are doing well financially. Like, really well. We’re out of the hole, and I’m starting to get a pretty good savings built up! Okay? You guys think what you want. Yeah, she sucks and she’s a shit parent, but she’s helping me, so back off! Unlike you guys, I don’t have the luxury of saying no.”
Charlie toyed with her fork and refused to make eye contact. “So clearly you were aware she wasn’t trustworthy, you are aware, and you still went ahead with the implant.”
“Yes, I know now that she isn’t trustworthy, but no, at the time I didn’t. You guys made it clear you have some bad blood, but Vivian only told me about it a little once! I got that you weren’t friends, but I never got that Jacqueline was the kind of person who would do... that. This could have been a three-second conversation, like ‘Hey get this implant because it’s cool and I want you to be happy.’ ‘No, my mom is a bitch and I don’t want the
implant.’ ‘Oh, okay, I love you,’ ‘I love you, too.’ The end. And you! I never did anything to you, personally. We were friends, and then you were just gone.”
For a moment Kate thought she had cracked Charlie’s resolve. Her eyes softened, her lips twitched like she was going to laugh, but then her scowl snapped back into place, darker than before. “I don’t think you get to decide what Vivian should forgive.”
“I know that, of course I know that.” Kate shook her head, trying to clear her mind and release some of the anger.
“No, you just don’t get it,” Charlie said after a few moments of silence. Her hands jerked as she balled up her napkin. “She is morally opposed to the damn implant, can’t you see that?” Kate went to argue, but Charlie didn’t give her a chance to speak. “She thinks that just because someone is deaf doesn’t mean they need to be changed. Of course, if they want the implant, then that’s fine, that’s their choice, but no one, I mean no one, should be forced into getting it just so other people feel comfortable.”
“How was I supposed to know that? She never told me that!” Charlie opened her mouth, but it was Kate’s turn to cut her off. “I get it, I do. I made a mistake, yes, but she assumed she knew my intentions, and she overreacted. She didn’t even listen to me for a second, and I lost everything! So stop! There are two sides, Charlie. Two sides!”
Her ex-friend pursed her lips and remained silent.
Kate softened her tone. “So. Can I ask the question yet? How is she?”
Charlie shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “She was a mess for a while, but not as much of a mess as it seemed like you were.”
“Ouch, Char, thanks.”
“Well, you’re forgetting,” Charlie continued, “that Vivian is very used to losing. Jacqueline takes everything from her, if she can. I don’t know if she means to, but she does. God, she probably means to. Some punishment for being unwilling to hear.”
“You know, Vivian said something like that once, too, something like her mom hated her for ‘refusing to hear’ or something. What the hell does that—” But then it clicked. “Oh, that was about the implant, wasn’t it?”