The Grip Lit Collection

by Claire Douglas

  “Is that Imogene you’re texting? I hope you’ve told her you’re grounded. Because you are. If you think you’re going anywhere, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “It’s work,” Violet lied. “They’ve been waiting for me to pick up my paycheck. Can we swing by there now?”

  Josephine’s expression said this was yet another inconvenience in a string of intolerable annoyances. “I think you’re expecting too much of our goodwill and valuable time,” she said. “We’re studying for the math Regents exam. Will has been working like a Trojan.”

  Violet glanced back at Will. He sat up defensively like she’d implicated him in something awful.

  “No worries. I can bike there. But if I go by bike, I can’t bring home the pear tarts Mrs. D has for me.” Violet knew her mother loved the pear tarts. Sometimes Josephine replated them and gave them to the priest at Saint Peter’s, passing the recipe off as her own.

  “Fine,” Josephine said. “Just so long as you’re quick about it.”

  As she walked in, she noticed Troy Barnes aiming his iPhone at a cardboard box of potatoes. He had a bandanna around his wrist. His hair was dyed a shade between jet black and purple. “Hey Violet, check this out.” He held up a misshapen russet. “It kind of looks like a manatee, doesn’t it? I’ve named it potato-tee. What do you think?”

  “I think you can do better than that.”

  “Mana-tato?”

  They pinned photos to the bulletin board in the back room: perfectly round avocados, banana slices that looked like electrical outlets, mushrooms that were shaped like human asses. At the end of the season, Mrs. D picked the best one and gave the winning photographer a hundred-dollar bonus.

  “It’s not as good as the fried chicken cutlet.” The fried chicken cutlet was shaped like Africa. “Is Mrs. D around?”

  “She’s out in the tunnels, I think. Want me to radio her?”

  Violet nodded. The tunnels were the unheated greenhouses were they grew kale, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, and Swiss chard.

  As Troy made his walkie-talkie crackle, he eyed Violet with seemingly fresh interest. Had he heard that she’d gone Planters peanuts? The thought was beyond unbearable. It made the blood drain from her brain.

  “Mrs. D?” Troy shouted into the hunk of metal in his palm. His eyes were the same amber brown as the maple syrup they sold. The corners of his mouth curved into a tiny smile.

  A crinkling sound from the tiny speaker. “Ye-ess?”

  “Your favorite cue ball is here.” Troy touched Violet’s head like someone petting a cat. His hand lingered on the back of her neck and she felt a warm tingling in every chakra.

  Violet whispered teasingly to Troy, “I can put a hat on bald. You can’t put a hat on desperate.”

  That’s when it sank in: her friends were the only family she’d ever known, and she was leaving them to go live with a flesh-and-blood relation who felt more like a stranger.

  Violet blinked away the thought just as quickly. Wasn’t it Sara-pist who said intimacy takes time?

  She would need a hostess gift. Possibly she could steal a special vintage from their parents’ wine rack. Something with hints of cinnamon, pepper, and sloppy sister bonding. She could picture it already, Rose flushed and tipsy, laughing at Violet’s recitation of their mom’s favorite sayings: “Go to bed, I’m tired” or “Excuse me for living, but the graveyard’s full.” She could practically see Rose giving her a “I’m-so-glad-you’re-here” hug as she laid out an extra blanket on the sleeper sofa. I’m glad too, Violet would say. You’re helping me the way I should have helped you last year. I don’t know which to say first: “Thank you” or “Sorry.”

  “Rose?” Mrs. D said the word the same way Violet and the rest of the gang mirrored bizarre inquiries from summer tourists: Sorry, what? Motor oil? Tweezers? Children’s backpacks? What would possess you to think we carried that?

  “You think it’s a huge mistake?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re looking at me like I’m paying in Canadian quarters.”

  “Oh honey, it’s just—Rose has been away a long time.”

  “And we weren’t close before, I know. But I feel like we have a lot to talk about. I won’t be gone forever. I’ll try to come back this summer. Maybe I can stay in the dorms?” The dorms were the bunkhouses where the seasonal workers slept on the perimeters of the cornfield.

  Mrs. D blew out her lips. “I hope we’re still here next summer.”

  “What do you mean?” Violet was baffled. As far as she could tell, business was as good as ever. “Where else would you be?”

  “The sheriff got a tip Dekker’s is trafficking prescription drugs.”

  “What?” Violet was gobsmacked. “It has to be a prank … Someone’s sick, stupid joke.”

  Mrs. D gave her an intense look. “You haven’t heard anything about this?”

  “I’ve been pretty out of the loop for the past week. But I can ask around. I can try to find out more if it helps.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get through it.” She shook her head and smoothed the weathered surface of her desk calendar. “So you’re sure your sister is in a good place?”

  “Like a doorman building?”

  “I’m talking about a good emotional place. You’re sure Rose can look after you? People around town still talk about the way she left, about whether she was mixed up with a bad group of people.”

  “Rose is happy now. And responsible. She’s got steady temp work. She’s going to help me save some money.” The plan Violet had so far went like this: she would be the best houseguest Rose had ever seen. She’d make dinner, clean up, do the grocery shopping and the Laundromat runs. As soon as she got a job, she’d offer to pay rent.

  “Gosh, honey. Unless you’re a Russian billionaire, I don’t think you’re gonna save much money living in Manhattan.”

  “Well, thanks for this.” Violet tapped her paycheck. “It’s a good start.”

  Mrs. D looked dubious. “You’re still only about two hundred dollars away from being homeless,” she said. She bent down and removed a silver cash box from the bottom drawer of her desk. She turned the key and counted out another two hundred in five-and ten-dollar bills. “Here you go.”

  Violet looked at the bills in disbelief.

  “I got kicked out of my house when I was a kid. I’ve got more advice if you want it.” Violet nodded. “Stick to middle-class areas. The rich ones will get you arrested, and the poor ones will get you robbed. It’s not safe to sleep in cars. If you have to do it, park in a motel parking lot. While you’re at it, pick one with a continental breakfast. Most of the desk clerks aren’t paid enough to care if you grab some fruit and cereal.”

  “Okay.” Violet didn’t have the heart to tell her she didn’t own a car. Josephine had donated Rose’s old Honda to the church.

  “Hostels can be helpful. Explain your situation to the manager and offer to work for rent. Do you have your birth certificate? Social security card?”

  Violet shook her head. “Neither.”

  “Get them. Take them with you. One more thing—” Mrs. D opened another desk drawer and shuffled through the contents. She pulled out a stack of flyers for other organic farms. “These are WWOOF farms that are looking for workers. Just take them. For options. Check in, okay? Call me on the first of every month. If only so I can give you the gossip.”

  When Violet emerged from the back room, she saw her mother sniffing the cartoon of milk they had on ice at the coffee bar. “Excuse me,” Josephine barked at Troy. “Boy? Hello? Can you come here? Yes, you, with the earbuds in. I think this milk is off.”

  Will was staring into the doughnut display case, as though they were his only friends in the world.

  Violet’s thoughts went to her sister again. Maybe Rose would have a fresh perspective—new ideas about how to help mother-smothered Will. Violet could help her brother, but only if she helped herself first. She told herself she was leaving, not leavin
g him for dead.

  “What happened to the hedge?” Violet remarked as they pulled into the driveway. The sad, black spindles were all that were left in the middle.

  “They caught fire,” her mother said.

  “How? Was Dad burning leaves or something?”

  “Yes,” Will said, as sudden as a sneeze. He’d been so quiet the whole ride, Violet had almost forgotten he was in the backseat.

  Josephine smiled and shrugged. “You know your father. He hates the leaf-fall time of year.”

  “Where is Dad?” Violet remarked as they pulled into the empty garage. Not that she was entirely ready to see him, especially after all those fights in the hospital. But she needed to act normal, whatever that was.

  “I assume he’s at a meeting,” Josephine said as she brought the car to a stop. “Not a work meeting. An alcoholics meeting.”

  Violet made a small, interested sound, as if this were news to her.

  Josephine killed the engine and turned to face Violet with a look of pure disparagement. “You heard me. Your father has quit drinking, and he’s working very hard at it. So do us all a favor and try to refrain from the kind of hysterics that drove him to the bottle in the first place.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Violet said solemnly. “I really do want to stop being the troublemaker—the family laughing stock.”

  A double take from Josephine. “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, Violet. I really am. Recognition is the first step to change.”

  “I had a lot of realizations in the hospital. I realized I’m the one who’s been dragging this family down. I mean, I’m the reason Rose left in the first place.” She gauged her mom’s reaction for a minute (she appeared to be buying it) and then continued. “Rose has been writing to me. She told me, ‘It was like living in a war zone … you and Mom fighting all the time. I just couldn’t take it anymore!’”

  Josephine smiled smugly, “So let me get this straight. You’re apologizing to me?”

  A pit opened in Violet’s stomach and she tasted bile. “I guess I am, yeah. Mom, I’m really sorry.”

  Josephine leaned over the gearshift and leaned in for another hug. Violet tried not to tense up. She tried to lean into it and imagine she was elsewhere. In Sheep Meadow, maybe, on a warm spring day, sipping coffee from a paper deli cup with Rose.

  The bathroom had the only locking door in the Hurst house, and thus offered at least the illusion of privacy. Illusion because Josephine liked to come knocking the second you got the shampoo in your hair, demanding something from the vanity drawers that just couldn’t wait.

  Violet turned the shower on and spent the next twenty minutes plotting. She was aching to pack, yet she knew she’d have to wait until her snooping mother went to bed. Even then she could only take what would fit in her schoolbag: a couple changes of clothes, nothing too heavy or oversized that she couldn’t manage it on the two-mile bike to the baseball field. She had her social security card—she’d found it in her mother’s jewelry box—but the birth certificate was a different matter. Violet didn’t have a clue where Josephine kept the family admin files.

  She wanted to see Imogene too, even though she wasn’t sure if the feeling was mutual. Violet sat on the toilet lid, wiped the steam off her cell phone, and composed a ridiculous message asking her friend if she could drop by, return Beryl’s copy of The Celestine Prophecy, and say good-bye before she ran away to live with Rose. She cringed as she pressed the Send button. Violet knew full well it sounded like the kind of off-the-wall claim a compulsive liar would make, but it was the truth and she felt powerless against it.

  As she was waiting for Imogene to respond, her phone hummed with a message from Rose: ONE O’CLOCK IT IS. SEE YOU THERE! GOOD LUCK SNEAKING OUT! :)

  Hot on its heels came Imogene’s reply. Three words, urgent or pissed off or both: COME OVER NOW.

  Violet made it to the Fields’ house by saying again that she had to pick up the homework she’d missed. Josephine pushed out her lips in a way that said she smelled bullshit. But Violet’s speech in the car had obviously earned her a few extra brownie points, and ultimately her mother let her cruise off on her bike with a hand-on-heart promise to be home by dinner.

  When Violet got to the Fields’ house she was relieved to find Imogene and Finch alone and unsupervised. They were in the kitchen, making dill weed sandwiches. It was a Field family favorite—a mishmash of cucumber and raw garlic cloves slathered in vegan mayonnaise.

  “Where’s Beryl?” Violet asked, even though she was relieved she didn’t have to explain her plan to another adult that day. Whereas Mrs. D had cautiously condoned running away, Beryl was far more likely to urge a family-healing, talk-it-out approach.

  “Omega Institute,” Finch said. His fingers were in a forty-dollar jar of the pink Himalayan sea salt Beryl bought for its healing benefits.

  “What’s the lecture?”

  Finch shrugged. “It’s some class in Kundalini awakening, I think.”

  “No,” Imogene said with unnecessary force. “It’s a class in shamanic empowerment. Some bitch from Woodstock told Mom she was sick because she lost her power animal.”

  “Oh yeah,” Finch said, as though suddenly remembering. “She said Mom’s power animal was a raven.” He laughed and halved his sandwich with a knife.

  Imogene’s face was hard. “And she convinced Mom she had cancer because she’d lost her life force. What did she call it?”

  “Soul loss,” Finch said, chewing. “Right. Some dark energy—the cancer energy—moved in and filled the space where Mom’s soul used to be. What a bitch, right?”

  Imogene mussed the pink side of her rainbowed hair in frustration. “So anyway, I’m dealing with that, and then I saw your message about moving in with Rose.”

  “I know it’s kind of … unexpected.”

  “Unexpected? It’s fucking random!” She glanced at Finch, who was shaking his head again. “I’m sorry, but it is! You don’t want to live at home with Josie the Soci, I get that. But you can stay here! You don’t have to go running off in the middle of the night like you fucking robbed a bank! You haven’t done anything wrong. We believe you, don’t we?” Finch nodded. “Totally.”

  Imogene fiddled with one of her oversized rings. “I’m so sorry about what I said at the hospital. We should have considered the source.” She meant Josephine.

  “Absolutely,” Finch said. “In a normal situation we would have considered the source.”

  “It’s just we didn’t know what to think. You were in that place …” Imogene was sputtering. She had a tiny glob of vegannaise on her lip.

  Violet hugged her. “I appreciate it. I do. But I can’t live with you. You know my mom would be over here in a second, screaming at Beryl, blaming your mom for turning me against her. It would be gross, and messy, and I won’t put your mom through that. Especially not now. Not when she’s dealing with breast-groping shamans.”

  The sound Imogene made was equal thirds laugh, spit, sob. “You can’t leave,” she said. “You can’t. You’re my unbiological sister. And you’re Finch’s soulmate!”

  This line of teasing made them both blush.

  “You’re going to come visit me, idiot. Next weekend, maybe. We can go to the natural history museum.”

  Imogene sniffled and wiped her face on the arm of her sweater. “Only if we can get stoned and hang out under the blue whale.”

  “Deal.”

  “Call me when you’re with Rose? No matter how late it is?”

  “I will.”

  “Do you think Rose is going to be different?”

  “I think so. At least, she seems different. In a good way. Rose is on my side. And I really need that right now.”

  “We’re on your side too.”

  “I know you are. But Rose has been where I am. She understands what this is like.”

  Imogene nodded sadly. “That’s a good thing, I guess. Anyway, don’t forget to call me.”

  Back at home, Will was settin
g the table for what looked to be a no-punches-pulled vegetarian meal. Violet didn’t trust it at first. She inspected and sniffed. She lifted the top on her mother’s beloved soup terrine and spied something orange and vegetal (pumpkin soup? sweet potato?). In the kitchen, she’d caught a glimpse of acorn squash, halved and stuffed with some combination of white beans and chard. Only she was aware of the irony: her homecoming dinner was secretly her farewell meal. And just as Violet had decided to leave, it was beginning to seem as though peaceful coexistence might be possible.

  She felt giddy and reckless. “So, Mom,” she said. “I’m seeing a conspicuous lack of bacon.”

  Josephine jutted her chin. “Well, I still don’t buy all that righteous baloney about not eating food with a face. But we could all stand to be a little healthier. I’ll give you that.” She untied her apron and added, “Not that you will ever see me put my lips on that meat substitute you like—the one that looks like a parboiled hot-water bottle and gives you that hideous breath.”

  Violet nearly laughed. Things that would ordinarily piss her off just seemed funnier the closer one a.m. got. It was like being stoned, only not, and she suddenly understood Edie’s beatific smile on the night of her birthday. With one a.m. in sight, nothing, nothing registered on Violet’s give-a-fuck-o-meter.

  “Violet!” Douglas was home from his guys’ night with Bill W. He called down from the second-floor landing. “Violet! Can you come here?!”

  And that was another thing that would have bothered her before. The way her father spent the whole of their family life hollering from a distance. He hadn’t seen her since she’d come home from the hospital. Couldn’t he just come downstairs if he wanted to welcome her home? Why was he like a man trapped on a high mountaintop, calling down through the mist?