Infinite in Between

by Carolyn Mackler

JAKE

  Ted: So . . . we need to chill.

  Jake: Chill where?

  Ted: No, us. Chill. I want to experience senior year as a single guy.

  Jake: Hang on. Are you breaking up with me over TEXT?

  Ted: I’m sorry. I would start cyring in person.

  Jake: Cyring?

  Ted: You’re my editor now?

  Jake: I can’t believe it. We’re happy, right?

  Ted: You’re happy.

  Jake: You’re not?

  Ted: I need to chill on the boyfriend thing fro now.

  WHITNEY

  “DON’T YOU FIND it strange that you’ve only been with white guys?” Alicia asked.

  They were sitting on the striped Ikea rug in Alicia’s dorm room, waiting for their toenails to dry. Whitney pressed a ripple of maroon polish with her thumb. She never should have come to Oberlin to visit Alicia. When her mom proposed the idea of flying to Ohio by herself for Columbus Day weekend, it sounded cool. But she forgot that she and her sister couldn’t stand each other. It was only the first night, and she already wanted to scream.

  Whitney thought of Gus and Zach and Lucas and a few others. All white, but it wasn’t like she was keeping track. “I’ve been with whoever I want,” she said sharply.

  “But you’ve never been with a black guy. Admit it.”

  Whitney chucked a cotton ball at Alicia. Just because her sister was suddenly hardcore about being black, why did she have to drag Whitney into it? When Whitney had driven to Oberlin last spring with her dad, she’d met a bunch of her sister’s college friends. They were African American, biracial, white, Indian, Asian. But from the second she arrived today, it was a different story. All Alicia’s friends were black. She was only listening to music by African Americans. She had pictures on her wall of Kanye and Nelson Mandela and posters of Basquiat graffiti.

  “Your silence is saying it all,” Alicia said.

  “All I’m thinking is that I don’t have to tell you who I’ve been with.”

  “You’ve said enough.” Alicia reached into the mini-fridge for a bottle of water.

  “Screw you,” Whitney said, rolling her eyes. She could hear music thumping in the room next door, and people shouting outside the window. It made her wonder about college and where she’d be next year.

  “Also, you could have been nicer to my friends,” Alicia said. “You didn’t even try to talk to them at dinner. What was up with that?”

  The dining hall had been loud and hot, and Whitney had only focused on making it through the pasta bar without losing sight of her sister. Not to mention that Alicia and her friends sat on one side of the dining hall, and the white kids sat in a different area. College was supposed to be liberal, not back to the days of segregation.

  “I was fine,” Whitney said. She unzipped her duffel to find a cute shirt. Alicia was taking her to a party tonight and maybe even a bar.

  Alicia drained the water bottle and tossed it into the recycling bin. “Your problem is that you don’t know how to hang around black people. Your little group of friends, Kyra and those girls, they’re all white. That’s your world.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Anyway, Mom is white and Dad is black, so it’s not like we’re one or the other. It’s not like we have to pick.”

  “Is that really what you think?” Alicia asked. She was digging through her jewelry box for a nose ring. “Are you really that dumb?”

  Whitney pushed up off the rug. She honestly wanted to smack Alicia. “What’s your problem?”

  “I’m trying to help. You obviously have some identity issues.”

  Whitney yanked her phone charger out of an outlet. “You know what? I’m out of here.”

  She packed her SAT math prep book and slid her feet into her Chucks. It was going to ruin her toenail polish, but screw it.

  “Where are you going, Whit?” Alicia slammed her jewelry box shut. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Will you stop calling me stupid?” Whitney asked, choking up. “Will you stop calling me dumb?”

  “Will you stop acting like it?”

  Whitney didn’t even answer. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out the door. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “You okay?” asked a guy with a long black ponytail. He was sitting cross-legged in the hall, using a spoon to eat hummus out of a container.

  “Where’s the common room?” Whitney asked him.

  He pointed down the hall and then went back to his hummus.

  Whitney flopped onto a stained couch and looked up Greyhound times from Cleveland to Hankinson on her phone. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose into a napkin. She felt strangely calm as she called for a car service to the bus station. The website said it was a forty-minute drive, which would be crazy expensive, but her mom had given her emergency money. Maybe it was insane to take a twelve-hour bus ride in the middle of the night when she had a plane ticket for Monday morning. But she was sick of Alicia treating her like there was something wrong with her. Not that she even hung around Kyra and Laurel and Autumn anymore. Not that Alicia had cared to ask.

  “You’re too pretty to be on a Greyhound bus,” the guy next to Whitney said. It was past eleven, and they were zooming through eastern Ohio.

  He didn’t say it in a creepy way. Whitney had been watching him, too. He was maybe eighty, a grandfather type. He’d spent the first twenty minutes of the bus ride carefully peeling the tin foil off a picnic his wife must have packed for him, sampling each item before wrapping everything up again. Then he dug out an ancient flip phone and called to tell someone he was going to sleep.

  “I just need to get home,” she said.

  The man was white with thick gray hair and a small dollop of a nose. Whitney imagined him coming from a large Irish family. He’d married young and worked hard, like, as a carpenter, and he and his wife had raised four boys. They’d gone to church on Sundays and bowling on Mondays, and now they had ten grandchildren. Whitney guessed he was on his way to visit his first great-grandchild, who was born two months ago.

  “Who made you that picnic?” she asked the guy after a few minutes.

  He looked startled. He must have been dozing off. “What picnic?”

  “The food you were eating before.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I made it myself.”

  “Your wife didn’t?”

  “I was never married.”

  Whitney felt a stab of sadness for those four strapping sons and the ten grandchildren who never existed. “Then who did you call before?”

  The man cleared his throat. “A social worker who checks in on me. I’m visiting my brother. He had a stroke. They’re not sure he’ll make it through the weekend.” Then he switched off his overhead light and closed his eyes.

  OCTOBER

  ZOE

  “CAN YOU LOVEBIRDS go get a hot glue gun from the art room?” Nadine asked.

  “Ugh,” Zoe grumbled.

  “Which part do you have a problem with?” Dinky stretched his arm around Zoe and tickled her waist. “The love part or the bird part?”

  “Or the hot glue gun part?” Anna said, giggling.

  Zoe scowled at Anna. “Don’t make this worse.”

  When Dinky had asked Zoe to work on the senior class homecoming float, she’d said no. She wasn’t into the high school spirit thing. But then Anna signed up, so Zoe was tagging along. The theme was “Outta Here in Outta Space,” and it was a low-key group. Dinky’s friend Gregor was there, and this girl Nadine who had a crush on Gregor. Everyone knew it except Gregor, which was kind of funny.

  “I like hot,” Dinky said, squeezing Zoe’s butt.

  Zoe yelped and jumped out of the way.

  “Glue gun,” Nadine said, rolling her eyes. “Hot glue gun. We need one. Jake . . . You know, Jake Rodriguez? He painted us a bunch of meteors that we have to glue on tonight.”

  “He’s the senior class president,” Anna whispered to Zoe.

  Zoe nodded. She had no idea
who he was. It was lame how she still didn’t have anyone in Hankinson figured out.

  “Okay, boss,” Dinky said. “We’re on it.” He grabbed Zoe’s hand and tugged her down the dark hall.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Dinky pressed Zoe against some lockers. Zoe ran her fingers through Dinky’s hair, and they started making out. After a while he guided her hand down to his shorts, but she pulled away. There were still janitors mopping the halls. She didn’t feel like getting busted.

  In so many ways Dinky was the perfect boyfriend. He was funny and cute, and he didn’t push Zoe to be a twenty-four-seven girlfriend. Zoe never wanted to be the kind of girl who texted with her boyfriend every time she left the house, every time she poured herself a glass of juice. Actually, that would be impossible with Dinky. He had a bit of ADHD, and he was always losing his phone or forgetting to charge it. Often he wouldn’t even get her texts until the next day.

  All that said, Zoe was having a tough time being with Dinky right now. She was moody this fall. She was snapping at the important people in her life. Aunt Jane and Anna, but Dinky was getting the worst of it.

  Dinky squeezed Zoe’s hand and then leaned in to her. She could feel him, hard against her thigh. “We could get out of here,” he whispered into her ear. “I don’t think my parents are home tonight.”

  “No, we should get the glue gun,” Zoe said, wriggling away.

  He moved in for another kiss. “Just another minute . . .”

  “Down, boy.” Zoe wiped off her mouth. “Take a cold shower.”

  Dinky shrugged and started down the hall, shaking his head. She’d hurt him. Fuck. This was how it had been since she’d gotten back from California, a sour mood that she couldn’t seem to shake.

  MIA

  Mia,

  Do you remember me from IMLI two summers ago? I was the guy from Kansas. Just wanted to say hey and see where you’re applying.

  Jeremiah

  Jeremiah,

  Hey there! I can’t believe you remember me. I’ve changed a lot since California. Or maybe I was possessed that summer and now I’m back to my regular self. Okay, shut up, Mia. MIA is in JereMIAh. See, I remember you! You had blue hair and vintage shirts. I’m applying to Swarthmore early decision. The fall option. What about you?

  Mia

  Mia,

  Swarthmore, early decision. Fall option.

  Jeremiah

  PS My hair is now regular brown.

  Jeremiah,

  No way!!!

  (About Swarthmore, not your newly brown hair.)

  Mia

  PS My hair is now partially pink.

  Mia,

  I can’t picture you with pink hair! I toured Swarthmore last month and loved it. I’m writing my essay about growing up a dorky punk-music-loving guy on a farm in Kansas. Either that, or about the (formerly blond) girl I met one summer in California and how I was too chicken to tell her my feelings.

  Jeremiah

  GREGOR

  TWENTY MINUTES INTO senior lit, a bunch of girls started whispering and checking their phones. Gregor looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. Ms. Hewitt had stepped out for a few minutes, and they were supposed to be reading a chapter from The Namesake.

  “Did you hear?” asked the girl behind him. Her name was Kyra. Her dad was the principal, and she was always at the center of the girl dramas.

  “Hear what?” Gregor asked.

  “Laurel went into labor!” She shoved her tablet in her purse. “That’s my best friend. I’m out of here!”

  As soon as Kyra left, two other girls dashed after her. Laurel was the one who Russell had gotten pregnant. Good old Russell. Back in September, Gregor had seen Laurel wobbling down the hall in her stretchy maternity top, and he thought about what he’d said to his sister. At least it wasn’t you.

  “Do you know what she’s naming the baby?” a voice whispered behind him.

  Gregor whipped his head around. Whitney had moved into Kyra’s desk. She usually sat over by the window.

  “No . . . what?” Gregor asked.

  “Hunter.”

  “No way.”

  “I know,” Whitney said. “I don’t want to be negative . . .”

  Gregor grinned. “But who names a kid Hunter?”

  “Exactly.” Whitney nodded. “Like, is he going to hunt?”

  “It’s like naming him Gatherer.”

  Whitney giggled. “Or Fisherman.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gregor and Whitney smiled at each other, and there it was, this sudden flash of understanding. They got each other. Gregor felt something in his stomach, something low and deep and surprisingly happy. All those years when he was lusting after Whitney, he never realized that he might simply like her as well.

  NOVEMBER

  ZOE

  “FUCK,” ZOE SAID, dropping her phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Zoe! I really don’t think that’s—” Aunt Jane froze when she saw Zoe’s face. “What? What happened?”

  “My mom’s doing it again,” Zoe said, her voice flat. “You know, drinking. Like she was a few years ago.”

  It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the house was sweet with stewing pumpkins. Aunt Jane had a smudge of flour on her cheek.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Zoe nodded. She didn’t feel like crying. She barely felt much. Two days ago she’d broken up with Dinky. She said they should stay friends, but now he wasn’t talking to her. Anna was pissed at her for hurting Dinky, especially since Zoe couldn’t even explain why she dumped him. How could she say that she was upset about what she’d overheard between Aunt Jane and her mom that night in California? She didn’t even know what they’d been talking about or why it was making her so monumentally upset. Whatever it was, though, it made her not want anything happy or good in her life right now.

  “Should I call Max?” Aunt Jane asked.

  “He already knows. He was in the background, trying to get my mom off the phone.”

  Aunt Jane sank into a chair and massaged her temples with her thumbs. She was going gray around her part. “What about Al-Anon? I know you stopped going, but I’m sure we can find you a meeting tonight. Maybe Anna will go with you?”

  Zoe shook her head. She hadn’t been to Al-Anon in two years. She’d thought that was over. “I’m going up to my room.”

  “Can you at least call Anna?”

  Zoe pointed to the stove. “Your pumpkins need more water. They’ve stopped steaming.”

  As Aunt Jane hurried to the sink, Zoe walked slowly up the stairs.

  DECEMBER

  WHITNEY

  WHITNEY COULDN’T BELIEVE the stuff that was coming up in therapy. After she and Alicia had that fight and then she’d run away from Oberlin, her mom had suggested she talk to someone. Her mom found Jude, and so far she was exactly what Whitney needed.

  Every Monday afternoon, now that soccer was over, she hopped in the spare car and drove to Darien Coffee Company. She’d buy tea and then go to Jude’s office, which was in a tall brick building along the canal.

  It was freezing cold today, a few weeks before Christmas. Whitney got a cup of chai with steamed milk. As she walked toward Jude’s, she ran her free hand up and down her thighs. She was wearing thick corduroys and tall boots, but her legs still felt like blocks of ice.

  “You said you wanted to talk about death?” Jude asked. It was the beginning of the session. At the end of last Monday’s appointment, Whitney had dropped that bomb just as she was walking out the door.

  Whitney liked how Jude always remembered her stories. Jude was probably fifty, and she was also biracial, black and white. Whitney liked that, too. There was so much she didn’t have to explain about having a black parent and a white parent, about being neither and both. In one of their first sessions, she told her how her sister said Whitney didn’t know how to be black. Jude said that there wasn’t necessarily one way to be black. Also, she reassured Whitney that no one expe
cted her to be fully cooked about racial identity at seventeen, especially since she’d grown up in a mostly white community. As Jude talked, Whitney found herself nodding constantly.

  “It’s just—” Whitney paused. Her mouth felt dry, so she reached for her chai. “I never really talk about this, but when I was in ninth grade, there was a car accident at the end of my driveway. It was on New Year’s Eve, and I was in my dad’s car with Kyra and Laurel. We didn’t know Autumn yet.”

  “Was that when your dad lived in the house?”

  Whitney nodded. “It was right after my parents split up. It was a head-on collision. Sometimes I still think about how Kyra and Laurel and I were all holding hands and crying. I thought we’d be close forever.”

  Jude nodded. She knew Whitney didn’t hang out with them anymore. They talked about that a lot.

  “The guy died,” Whitney said, swallowing back tears. “The driver of one of the cars. His name was James. He was a junior.”

  Jude gestured toward the tissues. “Did you know him?”

  “Alicia did, a little. She went to the memorial. Everyone did. It was the thing to do.”

  Jude sipped her water. She always had a glass on the table next to her. “Did you go?”

  “No, that’s what I’m saying.” Whitney crossed her legs and uncrossed them again. “Anything having to do with death terrifies me. There’s this guy at school, Gregor. His dad died a few summers ago, and here’s how lame I am. I couldn’t even tell him I was sorry.”

  Jude took another sip of water. “You said his name was Gregor?”

  “Yeah. Gregor.” Whitney wiped her nose with her hand. “It’s horrible, right? I feel so horrible about myself.”

  “Well, that’s why you’re here. It’s normal to be scared of death. Let’s talk more about why you feel so bad about yourself.”

  Whitney exhaled slowly. She’d never had someone ask her so many questions, or listen to what she had to say. She’d never talked about herself for so long. She’d never had so much hope that things could be better.