My eyes filled with tears. They did this regularly now; I was constantly a faucet, ready to leak at the slightest provocation. If only Dave Macmillan could fix me. “We really did. Do you think … do you think it’s a mistake to get rid of all that stuff?”
“No,” she said, rinsing her plate and opening the dishwasher with a clang. “I really don’t.”
There was motion in my peripheral vision and Ben moved behind her. He shook his head.
“What does that mean?” I asked him accidentally. “You don’t think I should sell?”
I shifted my gaze quickly back to Kristin.
Fortunately, she didn’t think it was such a dumb question. “No, I meant I agree with you—it’s time to sell and move on. We’ll all have fun in new places, with new people. This place has too many memories for you to move forward in it. Can you even imagine having another man here?”
“Of course not!”
“Well, someday you’re going to have to think about that, and it’ll be that much harder to do when Ben is so present.”
Ben nodded and pointed to her. What she said, he mouthed.
“But I want him present.”
“You want him alive. We all do. But, honey, it’s not going to happen. So you need to leave it in the past.”
“I can’t stay like this forever,” Ben added. “You know that.”
I took a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess I know that’s right.”
“It is,” they both said.
“Man, it is cold in this draft,” Kristin said, visibly shivering. “I think we should call some window guys.”
“Let’s just get painting,” I suggested. “I’ll do the dishes and worry about the window later.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Jamie
When Jamie woke up in the morning, he was sore in a good way. Like his body had melted and, upon his renewing consciousness, he’d re-formed it from a pile of slime into the body of a teenage male.
From flat on his stomach, he curled up into a sitting position.
The room was so bright, he couldn’t believe he’d slept this late. His own room at home was darkened like he’d turn to ash if his flesh met a sun ray. How was it that here, with windows completely uncurtained, he’d managed not only to sleep well, but to awake feeling revived?
Was this how normal people felt?
No. He was pretty sure everyone sort of hated waking up.
Something crashed downstairs. The sound of metal, wood, a small splash, and then his mother’s yell made him think maybe it was a paint can falling off of a step stool.
He wouldn’t ordinarily be able to so literally envision his mother’s catastrophes, but he’d watched the woman teeter her full Behr cans on various precarious surfaces so many times recently.
He’d better rush down and bear witness before she pretended it had never happened.
His shorts were hanging a little lower on his hips than usual. He’d lost weight. And muscle. That whole “V” thing Roxy had so obsessed over wasn’t gone, but it was more from emaciation than muscle.
Roxy.
She’d probably called or texted a hundred times.
He picked up his phone. The screen was completely clear. It actually made his eyebrows shoot up. Had he ever even awoken with this being the case? At least not since he’d been with Roxy, no. Before that, he just didn’t really remember. He’d approached the morning phone scan with such dread for so long, and yet here his screen lay. On, but empty. No airplane mode, no nothing.
His first fully formed thought was … Had she always been that easy to shake?
In the slapstick delivery of a long-ago comic, his internal response was, I shoulda ditched the broad lwwwong ago!
He threw a T-shirt on and almost brought his phone with him, then stepped back in the room and tossed it back on the mattress.
The stairs were carpeted. A thick, plush carpet he’d forgotten about until he felt it now under his bare feet. He snuck a bit down them, feeling surprisingly mischievous about sneaking up on his mom and the inevitable paint disaster.
Sure enough, he found his mom in almost exactly the scene he would have anticipated.
Hair back in that old green bandanna. Sports bra that read VICTORIA, and made him feel weird because the girls he knew bought from there too. Jean shorts hacked off at mid-thigh, shorts that he knew had been his dad’s at one point, but which had much longer been his mother’s.
More than all that, though, was the way she shuffled around the table and tried to redirect him once she saw him.
“Good morning, Jamie!”
“Uh. Morning, freak show.”
“May I direct you to the fridge, which Aunt Kristin has piled high with leftover popovers, fruit, and orange juice, and coffee—do you drink coffee yet? I say ‘yet’ like it’s a necessity of adulthood, when really it’s—”
“Did you spill a can of paint?”
She swallowed her face.
He never really understood that expression. When she’d catch him in a lie during his childhood, she’d either glare or laugh at him, saying he’d swallowed his face. But now he saw her do it—her temples sank back above her ears, her hairline receded by a centimeter, her color vanished, her eyebrows went straight, her eyes went blank, and her chin receded hilariously, reptilian-like, into her neck.
He could literally not not laugh.
“Wha—no!” she turned to the obvious scene of the crime, where Dolly was quietly venturing. “Dolly, stop, no! Don’t … ruin my new artwork!”
He moved his mom aside and looked at the enormous spill of vanilla-colored latex paint.
He looked back at her.
“I—okay, well, it wasn’t totally my fault. Do you think you could, um. Maybe help me…”
He looked down at the creamy mess.
“Would you rather me help clean that up or go get a job?”
Her face lit up. “A job? Here? Really?”
He shrugged. “Thinking about it.”
“Oh, I got this. You go do that!” She grinned, then surveyed him. “I mean, change. Because you look like a punk. But yeah, go!”
* * *
He got to the restaurant and was directed onward into the parking lot by a guy wearing an orange Hawaiian shirt and a frown. This took him to a full parking lot and a valet stand, where another guy in a Hawaiian shirt—this one grinning to the point of overwhelming—leaned down to Jamie’s open window.
“Hey, there, Señor Tequila, we’d be happy to park your raft for you, only ten dollars—gratuities appreciated!”
The dude looked straight out of a canceled sixties sitcom. His red shiny face was at least a foot from Jamie’s, and yet he felt as though they were forehead to forehead.
“I’m actually here to see if you all are hiring—fill out an application. Someone told me to come by.”
The guy nodded blankly, as though he weren’t programmed to answer such an inane question. “Right, right!”
Jamie looked at him for another second, expecting the full-grown adult man to kick in somewhere along the way. When he didn’t spring to life, Jamie went on.
“Okay, can you tell me where self-parking is?”
“You’re gonna have to head right out of paradise.” He adjusted his footing noisily in the sandy drive. “Hook a right by Java Joe up there in the orange shirt, head straight down until you see the real world!” He laughed. “There ought to be a public parking lot over there. At least I hope there is for your sake! Wouldn’t want you drownin’ out there in open water!”
Good lord, thought Jamie. He didn’t like to be the Scrooge who hated all the festivity, but this was just irritating.
“O … kay. All right, thank you.”
He followed the insane directions until he saw a parking lot sign.
Parking was twelve dollars.
He sighed, resigned, and headed back around the loop. Once again the guy stooped to the window and started his spiel. When he recognized Jamie, he said, “Well, h
old on, now, have I been hit in the head by one too many coconuts, or have I seen you around these parts before?”
Jamie stared at him a beat. “Uh, yeah, I just want to valet.”
“Ten dollars, Señor Tequila, gratuities appreciated, pay on your way out, and … son?” He leaned in close. “I’d have your ID ready, and don’t bother trying to get one past that doorman, he’s a stickler!”
Jamie considered explaining, again, that he was just there for a job, not a pineapple filled with … anything, ever, that this man had been drinking, but reconsidered and just said, “Thanks.”
He walked up the rickety driftwood ramp that led to the building.
The PRETTY MAMA sign was bright pink. Underneath the name it read Come on why don’t we go?
If he didn’t get the lyrical reference, this would have seemed like a bizarre and frantic tagline.
The doorman was no stickler. He nodded him through after a glance. Jamie went in. The place was all palm fronds, sand, parrots, neon beer signs, and day-drunk middle-aged people bonding with drunk college students. The middle-aged men felt flattered by the college girls who took pictures with them for the novelty factor on their Snapchat; the girls accepted one too many free drinks. The middle-aged women told the college boys how cute they were, and how they wished they’d known boys like them in college.
The bartenders looked happy and tipsy. One TV screen played Blue Hawaii starring Elvis, another showed a 1950s beach party that reminded him at least of a Mystery Science Theater 3000, and another screen showed an old seventies basketball game—the shorts were a dead giveaway.
“Hi, welcome to Pretty Mama’s, how many in your party?”
He turned to see a hostess, younger than him even, her smile as stiff and marionette-like as her voice was. (“Welcome” came out as “walcah,” and “party” came out as “pardeee.”)
“Uh. Is there a manager around? I’m just looking to fill out an application.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh! Awesome! Okay, yeah, let me just…” She looked in her podium. “Here you go, here is an application and a pen, I’ll get Steve.”
“’Kay, thanks.”
“You can head right to the Cuban Corner, I’ll send him over.”
The Cuban Corner was a dark black-and-red bar with cigars displayed around bottles of expensive-looking tequila.
He sat as close as he could to a neon Corona bottle so that he could see the application, and started filling it out.
A guy came over fifteen minutes later in khakis and a blue polo, the Pretty Mama logo above his left nipple. Jamie wouldn’t have noticed that it was above a nipple ordinarily, but the man had some of the most obvious man boobs he’d ever seen.
“You the one looking for a job?”
Now that he was closer, Jamie could smell a waft of cigarette smoke and fry oil.
“Yes, sir,” said Jamie, standing and putting out his hand.
“Whoa-ho-ho!” said Steve, putting his own hands in the air. “Sir, huh? More professional than the whole staff I got here combined already.”
Jamie picked up his application and started to hand it to Steve. The man shook his head and said, “Nah, don’t worry about that old formality.”
He was trying to be cool and easygoing, but it just bugged Jamie. At least pretend to look at it.
“Ever worked in a restaurant before?”
“No, first time. First job, actually. Except for stuff around the neighborhood at home. Lawn mowing, snow shoveling, dump runs, stuff like that.”
The guy nodded, impressed, which Jamie thought was almost exactly the wrong response to that.
“What are you looking to do around here?”
“Whatever you’ve got. Of course, I want to make as much as I can, I’ll work hard, and I’m a fast learner even though I don’t have experience yet in this industry.”
“Whoo, all right, college boy,” said Steve, as though Jamie had just spoken in Latin. “Let’s get you a uniform, you got time to start training right now?”
* * *
Jamie spent the next hour trailing behind Steve, both of them now matching in blue polos. He showed him the dishwasher, the prep area, the expo line, the surly cooks behind that expo line, where the reeking Dumpsters were, where he could smoke (which he didn’t and wouldn’t). He showed him the basics on the POS—point of sale—which was the computer, but which he made an easy joke about, calling it the Piece of Shit, and saying it worked seventy percent of the time. He introduced him to everyone working. They all seemed surprised and out of practice at meeting a new employee, as if they had been there a decade and rarely seen a new face—which, perhaps, was the case.
Steve had already let him in on about ten different loopholes, rules that weren’t really rules. Jamie knew it was probably because all the other employees broke them anyway, and because Steve liked Jamie well enough. But if Jamie were the manager, he thought he’d start with the rule and let the employee learn to break it, if that’s what they chose to do. Seemed like a much better way to manage.
Jamie spent a couple of hours around the kitchen and bar, learning what they’d need from him as an expo. By early evening, he was done and Steve walked him to the front.
The hostess put her hair behind her ear and waved to him.
She reminded him of Roxy. Her irises seemed to slowly swirl like hers.
“Where’d you park?” Steve asked as they left the building.
“I did the valet. It was expensive elsewhere and I just thought it was easier for now.”
“From now on park behind the building by the Dumpsters, we’ve got a lot out there. For today we won’t charge you. Would have if you hadn’t gotten the job.” He laughed.
Jamie tried to imagine exactly what or who would have to walk through the door that Steve wouldn’t have hired.
“Who parked for you?”
“That guy.” He gestured at him.
“Oh, Ronnie? Dude’s a fuckin’ whackadoo. All right, cool, so I’ll let him know it’s on the house, and hey, got a question for you.”
“What’s up?”
“You got any friends who might be interested in a job?”
“Uh—”
“Girls, especially? You got a girlfriend?”
“Not here. Well, no, I don’t.”
Steve sighed. “It’s a friggin’ sausage fest in there, employee-wise. I gotta find some cute girl to start takin’ tables or I’m gonna keep runnin’ a cougar den. If you think of anyone, let me know. I’ll put you on the same shifts and everything if you want.” He laughed again, that wheezy smoker laugh.
“I’ll think on it.”
“’Ey, Ronnie, this guy’s car, it’s on us. Fresh meat!” Wheeze.
“Thanks, man,” said Jamie, holding out a hand for a shake.
Steve took it, but then released in a slide motion and held out a fist for a bump.
This guy was like an overgrown ten-year-old.
Right before Jamie got in his car, Steve shouted, “Find a girl for me and I’ll bump your pay up a dollar an hour!”
He smiled back at Steve and gave him a thumbs-up. “Got it, thanks.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Willa
We put Spotify on the greatest hits of the eighties and went to work, shout-singing along with the music all the way. That, and just having Kristin there, made the time and the work go so much faster.
Plus, after all the dithering I’d spent my time doing over the past few days, it frankly felt good to do the kind of activity that had appreciable results at the end of the day. I loved spackling, always had, I don’t know why, and then rolling the paint over on the smooth surface was tremendously satisfying. I wasn’t as good at the detail work, which Kristin loved, so she was coming along after me and touching up the parts I wasn’t so good at.
At one point, she caught up to me and couldn’t go farther without landing on top of me, so she excused herself and went into the other room. I heard her talking for a while and assumed sh
e had gotten ahold of Kelsey and was talking to her.
Truth be told, I wished Kelsey could come. She’d always been good for Jamie when they were kids. He’d never admit it, but I knew she was his favorite of our friends’ kids. Whenever we’d have a game night or something, our friends would bring their kids, but Kelsey and Jamie always ended up as the dynamic duo.
We’d all come to the beach that last summer before Ben died. The kids were getting a little older—thirteen, almost fourteen—and I worried that they might be developing crushes on each other. Or, worse, one on the other without reciprocation. It would be such a shame to ruin a nice friendship with romance. Believe me, I’d seen it happen before, and nothing was worse than adolescent romance.
Both the kids had been moody and mopey when it came time for Kristin, Phillip, and Kelsey to leave, and after that they’d gotten squirrely about seeing each other, even though we lived just a few houses apart. By fourteen they didn’t need to come with their parents instead of staying home, and after that they had different interests and different friend groups.
As far as I could tell, Kelsey hung out with the good kids, the A-students, the pom-pom girls. Kristin and Phillip didn’t seem to have a lot to worry about, apart from the usual worry that came along with having a teenage kid.
Jamie was a bit more of a worry. He was already showing signs of wiliness before Ben died—missing school, claiming he was sick when we both knew he wasn’t, and just generally being antisocial. His friends weren’t losers, I don’t mean to give that impression, but they were more interested in video games (and could rattle off specs and release dates on those like computer scientists) than grades. His friends appeared to do all right in school, better than he was doing, at any rate, but none of them had any great ambitions, and that was a concern to me and B—
To me.
I didn’t notice how long Kristin was gone. I was lost in my own thoughts and the ordinary world of Duran Duran. When she came back in the room I was momentary surprised to see her walking in in front of me.
“I’ve gotten a great idea,” she said with a smug smile.
“Good!”
“I’m serious.” She went over and sat down on the sofa, then tapped the cushion next to her.
Every Time You Go Away Page 14