Hope and Other Punch Lines

by Julie Buxbaum

  “Abbi! Talk to me, please.”

  “It’s the crack of dawn on a Saturday. You’re lucky I’m even awake,” I say. My dad sits across from me, leans forward on his elbows. There’s a jitteriness to him that makes me think I need to drink at least two more cups of coffee to catch up. “I’m excited to see Grandma tomorrow.”

  “You know she’s going to be…different, right?” he asks.

  “Of course.”

  “She might not recognize you,” he says. The shame makes its slow creep up my spine. Why haven’t I thought about this before? Now that my dad has said the words out loud, I realize this is not so much a possibility as an inevitability. If not this week, then sometime soon. I try to feel the feelings before they happen—what that will be like, for my favorite person to not remember that I’m theirs too, for the love I feel for my grandmother to go unrequited—but I find I can’t.

  I have no trouble fantasizing about fun, unlikely things: First kisses. Someone holding my hand in a darkened movie theater. A boy tucking my hair behind my ear. But with the heartbreaking, likely things, the ones guaranteed to come with a piercing sadness, my mind goes blank with denial. I’m not naive—I know they will happen. It’s just that my instinct is not to go there until I have to.

  “I know,” I lie with a breeziness that surprises even me.

  My mom walks in wearing pajamas, a cute pink plaid pair, and she doesn’t seem surprised to find my father here, in our kitchen, holding the Best Mom Ever mug I made for her for Mother’s Day in the second grade. Did they plan for my dad to come over this morning to prepare me for my grandmother’s arrival, not unlike how he stopped by last week to help my mother prepare by fixing up the guest room and installing bed rails?

  “Coffee?” my dad asks, and my mom nods and then slips onto the stool next to me. He pours another mug, adds a generous helping of milk and sugar, extra light and sweet, the way my mom has always liked it, and passes it to her. “Do you remember when Abbi was six and she lost both of her front teeth and for about three months she had that adorable lisp and she would chatter on and on? And sometimes all we wanted was for her to be quiet so we could read the newspaper in peace? Now look at her.”

  My mom turns and appraises me, as if my dad meant it as a demand. She nods again, a little dreamy and slow. Takes a long, desperate sip of coffee. My usually chipper mother seems, if not quite gloomy, off somewhere else.

  “I used to know everything that went on inside that head. Now, no idea,” my dad says, and brushes my cheek with the back of his hand with such tenderness it’s as if he imagines what goes on in my brain is something beautiful and precise. Funny, I was wondering what goes on in my mother’s head. Even though I once lived within the confines of her body, even though her blood was once my blood, even though half of me is carved from the whole of her, my mom’s thoughts are still impregnable.

  As are everyone’s, I guess.

  “Right now I’m pretty sure she’s thinking Leave me alone, Dad,” my mom says.

  “Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner,” I say, though of course that isn’t what I was thinking at all.

  * * *

  —

  Later, I lie back on my bed with my phone perched on my knees and flip through the pictures from last night. I use my secret account, the one that only a few people know belongs to me, and I click to see what Friday night looked like for everyone else.

  Julia has posted a short video of her and Zach on a porch swing in Tash’s backyard. Her head is thrown back as if he has just said something hilarious, and his head is bent toward hers, and she’s filtered it so that they are in color against a black-and-white background. A sweep of fairy lights twinkles behind them as they boomerang back and forth in a blur of romantic whimsy. The video, which already has 245 likes, tells a very different story from the one she told me last night.

  “He’s not interested anymore,” she slurred, her head hanging from the car window to gulp the fresh air like a dog. “I think he’s hooking up with Tash. Who can compete with her? No one, that’s who,” she said, and then she projectile vomited in one surprisingly graceful move. Most of it landed outside. The rest I cleaned with the same Clorox wipes that used to come in handy when I was Cat and Ramona and Kylie’s designated driver last year.

  On the way home, I thought a lot about how even Julia, who has mastered the bored tone of the truly confident, who I doubt has ever once thought about how to hold her arms, who even throws up with perfect aim, can look at a girl like Tash and feel intimidated.

  As I scroll, I tell myself to stay away from this stuff. My Saturday-morning online ritual of vicarious socializing has turned masochistic, not at all in keeping with my mission this summer. Seeing other people’s manufactured joy in glossy Technicolor, as addictive as that may be, tends to leave me feeling deflated.

  It was sitting right here, with this same phone, in this exact same position, that I learned that Cat and I were no longer best friends.

  It wasn’t a total surprise. My friends often cut class—they stopped asking me to join in because I always said no—but about halfway through junior year they stopped regularly texting me to meet up later. Because of Instagram, I knew exactly where they were: always some senior guy’s basement, always with their hands wrapped around red Solo cups, always with their eyes pink and their heads resting on the boys’ shoulders like they were something too heavy to carry alone. A burden shared. True, I didn’t love to party—I felt stupid even using that word as a verb instead of a noun—but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to tag along occasionally.

  The outgrowing might have been mutual—I was as uninterested in their new activities as they were in the ones we used to do together and I still enjoyed (Netflix binges at Cat’s house, coffee at the Blue Cow Cafe)—but the decision to go our separate ways was not.

  Did I do something to upset you? I once texted Cat around Christmastime because I was too scared to ask the question to her face. I waited a full day and a half for a response, the whole time sick to my stomach with worry, and when one finally came, all she said was Nope. Y?

  I had wanted her to tell me Of course not. I wanted her to tell me that everything was fine. I wanted her to tell me that she and the girls hadn’t moved on. That’s what best friends are for: to convince you that all of the nastiest voices in your head are wrong.

  Later that week, we were all hanging out at Cat’s house, and I was elated to find myself back there, after what seemed to be an inexplicable and long exile. This was about three months after the most recent Where Is Baby Hope Now? article and around the time a newspaper columnist pinned an entire war on me.

  “What’s it like to be famous?” Ramona asked me, and I got the feeling she was purposely stirring up trouble. Cat and I rarely talked about the Baby Hope thing—partially because there was nothing to talk about; it had always been what it was—and also because until recently, it was our only disconnect. Her dad died on 9/11. My whole family, me included, lived. In some ways, you might even argue we profited from it, if you considered being recognized or seeing your face on a tote bag a benefit. (I didn’t, of course, but I could see how one would.)

  “I’m not famous. Not really,” I said, and Cat shook her head at me, like that was the exact wrong thing to say. Back then, it felt like I was usually saying the exact wrong thing, as if it were an art form I had studied and recently mastered by practice alone.

  I thought we had long ago figured out our dynamic. I had assumed that friendship was static, not fluid. Ramona was our leader, Kylie was our echo, and Cat was our soul. Looking back, I’m not sure what my designated role in our foursome was. I was the kidneys, maybe—loyal, a little too practical, a little too earnest. Definitely no need for two of them.

  Still, I do know who I used to be to Cat: her other half, her best friend, the one who had been by her side so long our childhood memories were inte
rchangeable.

  And then, that Sunday, on a cold spring morning, after I had bought tangerine hair dye thinking that might be the answer, that my hair color would let me leap me over the divide that had sprouted up between me and my friends, I stared at my phone, and there it was, photographic evidence of what I’m sure I knew all along. A shared history doesn’t guarantee a shared future. My best friend was no longer my best friend.

  On my screen was picture after picture of a wasted Cat and Ramona and Kylie in various configurations all at Victor Sarmiento’s party.

  A happy threesome: big droopy, not even smug smiles, glazed eyes, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, a few taken with hands on hips, lips pursed, another with party-store mustaches on sticks. Cat’s hair was purple, Ramona’s pink, and Kylie aqua. Each picture was designed to scream We. Are. Having. So. Much. Fun. Here. Without. You.

  When I had texted Cat earlier to ask what she was doing that night, she had written back: Have to babysit.

  A three-word lie.

  Cat knew about my secret accounts. They were her idea in the first place, the only way I could participate in any sort of online life without bringing out the trolls and the terrifying 9/11 conspiracy theorists. She was the one who had dubbed me absfabs35, set my location as Dubai, and taken a quick picture of the back of my head and set it as my profile.

  So of course Cat also knew I would see those pictures. Even worse, I was sure she wanted me to see them, to send the message she could not bring herself to deliver out loud.

  Here was my very first thought when I clicked:

  Not I hate Cat.

  Not even They suck.

  Instead, I thought, Okay, then. Moving on.

  I thought, They do not even think you are worth wasting a paper mustache on a stick.

  I thought, Time to start over.

  And so I did. I let them let me go. I didn’t call Cat tearfully and ask what had happened to our friendship. I didn’t even get angry. What was the point? We were friends and then we weren’t. Not everything grows in tandem.

  I know better than anyone that you can’t always draw a straight line from the who you once were to the who you are now.

  Phil is eating breakfast when I come downstairs: shredded wheat with half a banana (the other half saved in Saran Wrap), as he has done every morning I’ve known him. I was happy when my mom married Phil, not because I particularly like him or like living in his house, but because of the relief that came with realizing that making her happy was no longer solely my job. I pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms; I like to imagine he’s jealous of my wanton sugar consumption.

  “Heard you and Jack went to a party last night. How was it?” he asks as he types on his work phone. Phil’s a lawyer, so this conversation is probably costing someone $550 an hour.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “You score?” he asks, without looking up. Is he joking? I don’t think so. Joking is not something Phil knows how to do. Neither is laughing.

  “You realize you’re my stepfather and this is not a fraternity house. In 1995.”

  “Just making small talk,” he says, and I look around for my mom to rescue me, but she’s nowhere to be found. “Listen, your mother’s worried about you.”

  “What this time?” Worrying is my mother’s favorite hobby. She likes it even more than those spin classes where they yell at you, and she likes those an unhealthy amount.

  “She thinks you need more friends.” Again, he speaks while looking at his phone, and for a second I wonder if he’s even talking to me. Then the brutality of what he’s said hits me in the gut.

  “Wow,” I say. “That’s harsh.”

  “I was glad you went out last night. When I was your age, I partied my ass off.”

  “Right.” I have no idea what is happening right now, and I’m reduced to single-word responses. Phil wears suits during the week and khakis on the weekend, and his pajamas have piping and buttons. I’ve only seen him in a T-shirt once in four years, that time he had the flu, and it had a collar and a logo of a man riding a horse. If I had said ass, he would have said, Language, please.

  It’s like he woke up this morning and put on his to-do list Try to connect with Noah by using bad teenage slang. Normally, Phil doesn’t even speak English. He speaks C-SPAN.

  “Tell her not to worry. I’m fine.”

  “Jack’s a cool kid. I like him. I do. And I think your bromance is super cute. But you need more than Jack in your life.”

  “Super cute,” I repeat, and lean hard enough on the sarcasm that hopefully even Phil will notice. I wish I had brought my phone down with me. Then I could look at it, the same way he’s looking at his, and I could pretend this conversation isn’t happening. I’d text Abbi something like Thanks again or Fun hanging out last night or See you at camp or maybe just a subtle Hey. Definitely no exclamation marks.

  Probably better not to text her at all. Play it cool.

  “You need a girlfriend,” Phil declares.

  “Working on it.” This is a lie unless you count my foot tap, which I don’t, because that would be ridiculous. I have no idea how one goes about making something like a girlfriend happen. My plan is to figure it out my freshman year of college, when I won’t be surrounded by the same people I’ve gone to school with my whole life. When there will be girls who won’t assume they already know everything there is to know about me just because we both had Mrs. Navarrette in the first grade.

  I wonder what Phil would say if I told him about my Baby Hope plans. He’d probably tell me I’m an idiot. That I should ask Abbi out on a date and forget the rest.

  “Good. That will make your mom happy,” Phil says with a hint of finality, like he’s done delivering an unsatisfactory performance review.

  “I’ll keep you regularly updated on my progress and I’ll circle back to let you know if I score,” I say in my best businessman imitation.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary.”

  “I was joking,” I say.

  “Right,” Phil says. “Of course.” And then he goes back to his phone.

  “The plan is to meet after work. There’s a 7-Eleven five minutes from here, so we are on for Slurpees and Twizzlers,” Noah says first thing Monday, and bounces on his heels.

  “Did you have coffee or something? You seem, I don’t know, extra happy?” I ask, looking him up and down. He’s unusually energized, which is saying something, because Noah always has a bit of a terrier quality to him, like he was born to be a camp counselor for four-year-olds.

  “Just a beautiful day. Life is good,” he says, and I consider teasing him that he sounds like a yogurt commercial. Also, when you let yourself really think about it, the world can be a cruel, dark place. We all know that buildings explode sometimes for no apparent reason. Or for complicated geopolitical reasons that will never quite make sense. And sixteen-year-olds get things like the World Trade Center cough, and some not-so-old people lose their memory.

  And yet, he’s right. I look around and see that I’m surrounded by so much wonderful mundane joy. Life is good, for the most part, which is why we are all greedy about wanting more of it.

  “So can you drive?” he asks again.

  “Sure,” I say, and smile, which somehow makes him smile even bigger.

  “Thank you,” he says. “For doing this.”

  “You didn’t really leave me much choice.”

  “I know. But still. Thank you.”

  “Your earnestness is making me uncomfortable,” I say.

  “It’s also deeply uncool. Can I stop now?”

  I shrug.

  “Stopping,” he says.

  And then he lightly kicks my foot, again the dumb flip-flops—just because I’m aware of my flaws doesn’t mean I have the power to fix them—and runs away.

  * * *

  — />
  Later, in arts and crafts, while we’re making bracelets on picnic tables, Julia comes and sits down on the bench next to me.

  “Sorry about your car,” she says. “I don’t usually drink like that.”

  “No worries. There wasn’t much to clean up,” I say, and string an A-B-B-I onto a pink thread and hold up my wrist for her to tie it.

  “There’s another party this weekend. This time at Moss’s house, if you want to go,” Julia says.

  “Moss?”

  “The Rangers’ counselor?”

  I try to picture him but come up blank.

  “Redheaded dude who looks like Ron Weasley?”

  “Oh, that Moss.” I have no idea who she’s talking about, but there’s no need for her to know that. “Right. I’m in,” I say, and then, because I can’t help myself, I ask: “Are you only inviting me because you threw up in my car?”

  Julia smiles this weird cryptic smile she has, the one that makes it seem like she keeps all of her best thoughts to herself, and then she spins my bracelet around so that the A-B-B-I makes a whole revolution around my wrist.

  Like that’s an answer.

  Here is a complete list of everything I know about my father:

  His name was Jason Michael Stern and he was born on February 16, 1968. According to his gravestone, he was a “beloved son, husband, and father,” though I’m not sure that tells me much. You have to be a major dick not to make the “beloved” cut after dying in a national tragedy.

  He ate pickle sandwiches. Random, I know, but my mom threw me this bone once when I was six. I’ve hoarded this morsel for years, the way I imagine some people collect emergency kits in their basements. Like it will come in handy later for reasons yet unknown.

  My mom has always been stingy about my dad. As if he is a zero-sum game, not a dead person. Jack says his mom does this too, though his dad is alive and well with a new wife and three kids in Orlando. Jack’s mom will only talk about him after three glasses of merlot, and even then she won’t talk about him directly. Instead, she takes out her phone calculator and figures out how much he owes her in child support. Which is a long way of saying that Jack thinks it’s not that my mom doesn’t want to share, it’s that she’s still too broken to discuss him.