by Jen Doll
“I’m really going to miss you,” Ashton says, looking into my eyes, and I once again try to memorize how his smile spreads across his entire face when something is funny; the flutter of his insanely long eyelashes; his hands, strong and calloused from sports, but soft, too.
“I’ll miss you more,” I say, and I know it’s true. Ashton gets to stay right where I want to be, surrounded by all of our friends here at home, having the summer we’d been planning before my mom doled out her “exciting news” that was going to be “so good for us.” Now, I’m en route to a place where the only people I know are my immediate family members, and at the moment, I don’t even like any of them very much.
I guess I buried the lede: We’re moving to a small town in Alabama, because my mom, the rocket scientist, got a prestigious job at the Marshall Space Flight Center. And families stick together, whether they want to or not, I guess. Or at least mine does.
“You’ve got to come and visit me,” I say.
“I’ll do my best,” he replies. He leans forward, and I lean forward, and we kiss just as my mom honks the horn.
I cry until we cross the Mason-Dixon Line. At that point, I think I’m out of tears.
3
Grant
When my alarm clock rings, I hit it as hard as I can, knocking it off my dresser. Something about that feels good for a second. Then I hear it, still beeping. I look at the side of my hand, which is bleeding—from the alarm clock, maybe, or maybe from something else. I turn over onto my stomach and bury my head in my pillow and drown out the noise and the tiny twinges of pain (I’ve felt worse), and I will myself to go back to sleep. It’s summer, and there’s nowhere I need to be. Setting my alarm at this point is just for appearances, even if appearances have ceased to matter.
Downstairs, I hear people moving around and breakfast sounds, like pouring cereal and the toaster dinging and the chatter of my little brothers. Here in this room, my head is pounding, and the inside of my chest feels ragged. I shut my eyes. The only thing I can do is wait for the hangover to pass. The problem is, shutting my eyes doesn’t necessarily bring rest. That’s when my head feels like it might explode. That’s when I get pretty near desperate for another something to soothe me. Most of the time, I give in. Nothing like popping the top of a cold one, as they say.
My name is Grant. I’m seventeen years old. I used to be the captain of the football team, the most promising young quarterback in the history of my school, maybe the entire state of Alabama. I used to date the hottest girl in town. Now I’m just a guy. Don’t expect too much from me. If you do, I’ll probably let you down.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
4
The purple leopard suitcase wasn’t alone for very long. Another flight came in shortly afterward, and all of the new suitcases it had held for its passengers were tossed onto the conveyor belt, tumbling around the left-behind bag, which was caught up in their swirl. Then everyone came and collected their belongings but one, and the purple suitcase had a friend, a neon green bag with a lemon appliqué. The purple suitcase would have breathed a sigh of relief, if suitcases could breathe, because it sucks to be left alone at baggage claim, and traveling together is almost always better than traveling alone.
At the last minute, though, a breathless, sweaty guy rushed into the terminal and grabbed the lemon-lime suitcase. “There you are!” he said. “Let’s go!” And then he, and it, were out the door, and the purple suitcase was all by itself once again.
5
Nell
To my surprise, our new house is not completely tragic. It’s got a sloping roof that nearly touches the sprawling top branches of a big green willow tree growing right in the middle of the front yard. The back is full of what my mom says are magnolia trees. They’re squat, with oily, oblong leaves, and they’re supposed to be beautiful when they bloom in the spring. There’s even a tiny trickling rock pond that the former owners built. It’s twenty-years-ago high-tech; you hit a button, and water flows down the rocks. The other day I saw a little frog chilling in the pond, and I said, “Hey, frog,” and it said nothing, and I said, “That’s my line.”
I apologize to the frog, and to you. This is what passes for a joke with me at the moment. I haven’t been speaking to my parents unless it’s truly necessary. The only thing that’s keeping me going is a constant stream of text messages from Ashton and my friends back home. (I check my phone. There’s nothing new yet, but the Miss u baby Sleep well zzzzz from last night warms my heart.)
There’s this playhouse in the backyard. The former owners had two little girls, and little girls, according to the widely accepted gender rules of society, must love pink. I have long preferred blue, myself, and can go on about a certain shade of lush green for at least a minute, but I hope these little girls really did love pink, because they were the owners of a bright pink shack that’s got enough room in it for all the pink things I can imagine them wanting: a pink Barbie Dreamhouse and a pink Easy-Bake Oven and a ton of pink stuffed animals, or whatever else little kids are playing with that comes in pink these days.
Pink notwithstanding, I would have killed for a playhouse when I was a kid. I made do with pillow forts. And now I sound like some ancient curmudgeon complaining about trudging in the snow for ten miles to get to school, hot potatoes in my pockets to keep my hands warm. I’m fun. I promise I’m fun. Just not right now.
On our second day in the new house, I took a bunch of blankets and a pile of books and carried them out to the empty playhouse, which is large enough that I can lie on the wood-planked floor and stretch my arms as far as they can go in front of me and my legs in the opposite direction, and there’s still room on each side to grow. I decided then and there that this would be my safe space, where I can retreat and be alone and think. Where I can figure out what I’m going to do with myself. I have to work on my plan, which is to get my parents to let Ashton come and visit, and to get Ashton’s parents to do the same. (I’m less worried about that part. The difference between how adults treat teenage boys and girls is real.) In the meantime, I read books. I’m currently obsessed with noir. I’ve got a stack of novels with shadowy figures in trench coats trudging through the dark on their covers, which seems to fit my vibe right now.
In case you haven’t heard, Alabama summers are no joke. Walking outside is like being hugged by a person who’s just emerged from a pool of molasses. But under the roof of the playhouse, it’s cool and quiet, and there’s a woody-earthy smell emanating from below. It soothes me even more than the rock pond. So that’s how I’ve decided I’ll spend my days, book in one hand, phone in the other, keeping up with my friends and my boyfriend back home. In a week and a half of this schedule, I’ve plowed through seven novels. A girl cannot live on rereads alone, and it is, in fact, this lack of new material that forces me to finally have a conversation with my mom that goes beyond “Please pass the salt and pepper, and btw why did you have to ruin my life?”
It’s Sunday, so Mom’s in the kitchen, sitting at the table reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. I’m guessing Jack is playing video games in his room and my dad’s probably in his office, working as usual, even though it’s the weekend.
“Hi,” I say.
“Nell!” she says. “Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”
“I am right now,” I tell her.
“Honey,” she begins. I can sense she’s about to try to give me a hug, possibly paired with the worst of the worst—comforting words—so I step back. I want her to hurt like I do for a minute. It’s the only power I have.
“You’ve always adjusted so well when we’ve moved before,” she says.
“I was in fifth grade, Mom.” That was when we went from Houston to the suburbs of Chicago. “And before that, kindergarten.” Those two moves had been for my dad’s job—he’s a consultant for a huge oil and gas company. He figured out a work-from-home arrangement after my mom was given this “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” The thing is,
I barely remember the first time we moved. The second time, I hadn’t known how hard it would be. Now I do.
“I don’t see how you can’t understand the difference between then and now!” I say. “You ripped me away from my entire world, with barely any warning. Right in the middle of high school. When I finally had really good friends, a boyfriend, and everything! That’s brutal! It took me forever to feel good there, and I finally did, and now we’re here.…” I’m on the verge of crying.
“Shhhhh,” she says, and right on cue, Jack comes wandering into the room.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. We tell him nothing, even though something clearly is.
“I was just asking if Mom could take me to the library,” I say. Libraries are the same everywhere, I’m thinking. Maybe this one will feel a little bit like home, even if it’s in a new town.
She glances at her watch. “Those nightstands we ordered are supposed to be delivered this afternoon, and Dad’s got an important work call scheduled. What if I loan you the car and you go yourself? It’s not far.” Back in Illinois, I would have jumped at the chance to get behind the wheel of her Mercedes on my own. But now taking her car seems like accepting that I’m stuck in Alabama and might as well embrace it. I’m not ready to do that yet.
“I’ll go by myself next time?” I wheedle. “Pretty please?” She folds after I promise to make it fast, which isn’t difficult. The town’s so small! To get to the library, we drive by a big church, a scattered array of small stores, and the high school. (It nearly sends me into a panic to think about that.) Jack and I both pick out a stack of books, and we’re home again before the nightstands have arrived.
Back at the kitchen table, Mom passes me a section of the newspaper. Circled in black ink are a bunch of want ads.
“These seem like they might be good for you,” she says. “And a job will help you meet some other kids!”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m not really into a job right now, to be totally honest. I’m still … adjusting.”
She smiles with her mouth, but her eyes stay serious. I know that look. “Nell, I’m not making a suggestion.”
“Mom, come on,” I protest. “You really expect me to work at a Waffle House? No way. That’s my nightmare.”
“You don’t have to work at a Waffle House, honey,” she says calmly. “Though I think they’re pretty hip nowadays! I hear they have a hilarious Twitter account.”
I groan.
“The point is, you have to work somewhere. You told me you didn’t want me to help you get a job at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and I respect that. But you’re going to have to find something to do with your time that doesn’t involve moping around reading romance novels.”
“Mom.”
“You may not feel like talking to me for the rest of the summer,” she says. “But you are going to talk to someone. You’re going to get a job, and that is not up for debate.”
“I’m not reading romance novels! I’m reading detective fiction!” I yell. I toss my current book, which is, for the record, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, on the counter and stomp out to the pink playhouse, where I lie on the floor for a while feeling sorry for myself and angry that I sacrificed my book when I could now be finishing it. I skim through one of Jack’s dumb kid magazines—he’s always trying to hang out in the playhouse and read with me—and cry. How many tears am I going to shed in this place? I wonder.
I reach for my phone and call Ashton, but he doesn’t answer, so I leave him a quick voice mail. “Everything’s terrible, I miss you, call me back!” I say. Next I try my friend Morgan, who picks up. “Nell!” she shrieks so loudly I have to move the phone away from my ear. “I’m with Nisha and we’re giving each other pedicures and we wish you were here!”
Nisha grabs the phone. “Come back!” she says, and I feel even worse. “You should see this color Crankincense and Myrrh; it’s this vile green that looks totally rad. Oh, dammit, Morgan, you just spilled polish on my white shorts! Ugh, Nell, we gotta go. Love you!”
I’m holding the phone to my ear like it’s a shell, listening to the echoes of my friends carrying on with their lives without me. Something in me shifts, ever so slightly. I stand up, shaking myself off like I’ve been in a fight but I haven’t given up yet, and head into the kitchen. My mom is sitting there drinking a glass of wine and talking to my dad as he makes dinner. They both turn to me.
“OK,” I say. “I guess I’ll need the car tomorrow. To look for, you know, jobs.”
“Fabulous!” she answers, breezy as can be. Jack is helping shuck corn my dad brought home from a nearby farm. He asks, “Can I come?” and my mom interrupts, “Oh, Jack, honey, Nell’s got to do this on her own. But I bet Dad will take you to check out that toy store at the mall after you two drop me off at work.”
She winks at Dad, but he gives her this look. “Just because I’m working remotely doesn’t mean I’m not working,” he says. “You know I can’t just be gone for half the morning.”
“I thought you were going to take things a little easier for a while,” she reminds him.
“Fine,” he says, but he seems about as psyched as I’ve been since the move, and I wonder if my dad isn’t so thrilled about this upheaval, either. But then he smiles and looks at my little brother. “Jack, wanna check out the toy store at the mall tomorrow?”
Jack nods eagerly, and I manage a smile, too, and I guess that’s how it all begins.
6
Doris
On Monday, I find a new girl. She’s not that hard to find. She’s driving a Mercedes with an Illinois license plate, which I notice when I pull up next to her at the traffic light at what passes for a busy intersection around here. Out-of-state travel isn’t that common in our town, with the exception of the bargain hunters heading to Unclaimed. Neither are German cars. Somehow I doubt she’s a bargain hunter. She’s got blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and pale skin and probably freckles, though she’s on the other side of a car window, so it’s hard to see exactly.
I turn toward Unclaimed, and she heads in the other direction—yep, definitely not a bargain hunter. Maybe someone’s relative visiting from up North? I pull into the lot, parking my car and locking it, even though the last break-in around here was an only slightly exaggerated fifty thousand years ago and a lot of people don’t even lock the doors to their houses. For me locking is just a habit, like brushing my teeth in the morning. It’s a way to keep precious things safe (and cavity-free).
This is supercorny, but every time I see the store, I still get a little bit excited. Sometimes when I’m the last person there, I walk around touching things, imagining the stories. Who owned this stuff? Why’d they leave their carefully packed possessions behind? Did they die? Develop amnesia on the plane? Go into witness protection midflight and have to discard their bag along with any connection to their former selves? It’s the stuff of great mystery novels.
I have a system, separating out the bad stuff and making a list of what’s good so Red can price it, have it professionally cleaned if necessary, and put it out on the floor. Some days I can get through the boxes at light speed. It all depends what’s inside.
The bell over the front door tinkles as I enter.
“Hey, Red.” I greet my boss, who’s arranging dress shirts neatly on a rack.
“Hey, Doris!” he says, pushing his ginger hair out of his eyes and waving me over. “Guess what just came in?”
I’m good at finding things, not reading minds, but I take a stab anyway: “A brand-new billiards table?” (The other week we got a Ping-Pong table.)
“Nope,” he says proudly. “A big container of stuff from Huntsville International that a custodian found in a broom closet. The bags have tracking labels from eight years ago! What do you make of that?”
Huntsville is one of the airports that’s closest to us—we get stuff from there pretty regularly—so the long delay is especially weird. Most of our shipments are a year or two old, max. Last summer I did op
en a bag that had been lost in Italy, flying a perpetual circuit from Rome to Bologna to Venice and back again for something like five years. When it finally got to us, it was full of moldy biscotti.
“Yeesh,” I say. “I hope whatever’s in them isn’t perishable. All right, I’m going in,” I tell him, and head to the back room, where I crank up the Spotify playlist called “Unpacking 2.0” that I’m rocking out to. Last summer I made “Unpacking 1.0,” and I’m not going to lie: My mixtape talents are only improving with time. “I’m Bound to Pack It Up” by the White Stripes comes on—Aunt Stella turned me on to them—and I start sorting. The playlist is at the end of its second round when I take a break. I’ve made my way through four suitcases. A lot of stuff is in pretty good condition, despite the length of time it’s been stashed away in a broom closet. (That’s another mystery novel right there!)
I always make a list of whatever’s worth reselling so we can track the items as inventory. For fun, I also draw little pictures of what I find in the margins:
1. 1 rhinestone bracelet and necklace, good condition
2. 1 leather jacket, worn, still looks really good, fits me perfectly
3. A pile of different-colored T-shirts that we will resell at a buck a pop
4. 6 plain white button-downs, 1 blue with embroidered sunglasses all over it
5. A snorkel, a pair of goggles, and, in the same suitcase, a dog collar (?)
6. A well-worn paperback romance novel published in 1976 titled Lords of Love
Discards go in the dumpster in the corner of the stockroom. (I always throw away deodorant, as some things should simply not be shared.) Food also goes in the dumpster, because we’re not allowed to resell it, though if something unopened and unexpired comes through, it’s fair game for staff to snack on. My stomach growls right on cue, but there’s nothing remotely edible in any of these bags. When I’m done with each suitcase, I add it to the row of emptied luggage we also resell if it’s not too beat-up. I unzip my fifth suitcase, a tiny pink hard case with a picture of Hello Kitty on the front. I am not expecting a giant gray stuffed manatee to pop out, and when he-it-she (?) does, I scream. There’s also a flashlight in the suitcase. And nothing else.