Phantom Limbs

by Paula Garner

  “Oh my gosh,” Meg said, her fork poised over the potato salad. “Is it . . .”

  “Yeah, blue cheese and capers. My mom made it for you.”

  At first I thought she was smiling, but I sat up and leaned forward when I realized she was actually crying. “Meg?”

  She pushed her plate at me so she could cover her face with both hands. I set both our plates on the coffee table. “Hey!” I reached out but stopped short of touching her, not sure if it was okay. And I hated that I didn’t know. “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.” She wiped her tears away with her fingertips. “I just can’t believe your mom did that. For me!”

  I could think of nothing to say. After a minute, she picked up her plate and started eating again while I shoveled food into my mouth in a state of complete clueless wonder.

  When we finished, she stood up and brought our plates to the kitchen. My eyes followed her — I couldn’t help it. She had the perfect heart-shaped butt. Not athletic and muscular like Dara’s, but soft and womanly. To me, the ultimate ass aesthetic.

  When she came back, she sat and turned to me. She glanced down and bit back a smile. “Your legs got hairy.”

  I looked at my legs, a blush creeping up from my neck. “Well, yes. That’s, uh . . . a thing that happened.”

  “I mean, duh. Stuff happens. Obviously.” She gestured at her chest, then rolled her eyes at herself and buried her face in her hands, which amused me. When she raised her head, her cheeks were as red as mine felt. “God. I’m sorry I’m such a train wreck.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, then realized that I seemed to be confirming that she was, indeed, a train wreck. “I mean, you’re not . . .”

  She gave me a smile that could have melted a glacier. She was close enough that I was getting a little agitated about the onions my mom had put on the burgers.

  My phone dinged — my mom. I opened the text. “She says not to ride my bike home,” I explained to Meg, rolling my eyes. “They’re going to come get me.”

  “They’re . . . coming here?” Meg fingered the rubber band on her wrist.

  “Apparently.”

  “Oh.” Our attention turned to the TV, where a judge was ripping a chef contestant a new asshole because she’d overcooked the fish.

  “He’s so mean,” Meg exclaimed, shaking her head at the television. “I would never subject myself to one of these shows.”

  “Can you cook?”

  “I can cook some things. I make a mean pasta carbonara.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, relaxing back into the couch and stretching my legs out.

  She ticked off ingredients on her fingers. “Spaghetti, bacon, eggs, and cheese.”

  My eyes widened. “Bacon, eggs, and cheese? With pasta? Oh my God, that’s a swimmer’s wet dream!”

  I did not just say that. Did I? Meg’s expression confirmed that, yes, I had actually just said wet dream. What was going through her head right now? Images of me, grunting and bucking in the dark and waking up with a mess in my shorts? Oh God, why do I speak?

  I sought a rapid change in subject. “Hey, I have something for you.” I jumped up, ran over by the door, and dug through my backpack.

  “Here,” I said, thrusting the skunk out to her and sitting back down. Immediately my confidence wavered. A stuffed skunk? It was a stupid, childish gift. I wished I could rip off the idiot story from around its neck. We weren’t twelve anymore.

  But one look at her told me I needn’t have worried. “Ohh,” she whispered. “I love him.”

  “You still have stuffed animals?” I asked hopefully.

  “Are you kidding? Every one of them. What’s this?” She tapped the paper.

  “See for yourself.”

  She muted the TV, then opened the paper. When she realized what it was, she lifted a hand to her mouth. I tipped my head to watch her face as she read.

  “Oh, Otis,” she said through her hand, looking up at me. “I can’t believe you did this.” Then she reached out her arm, hesitated, and then ruffled my hair.

  Great — now I was a puppy.

  I discreetly tried to fix my hair; it was bad enough from the bike ride and the perpetual chlorine abuse without supplementary agitation.

  “I didn’t bring any stuffed animals with me,” she said, petting Herbert. “Now I have one to keep me company until I go back home.”

  “Right. In three weeks, you said?” And then we were in the awkward place, where we could no longer avoid talking about what was going on.

  She set Herbert on her lap and stared down at him. “I guess you know about my parents.”

  “I only know, like, the bare minimum. Like, your dad is transferring back? And that you’re here for a visit. That’s really all I know. I don’t even know why . . .” I trailed off, not sure I wanted to say it right out: Why after three years you suddenly wanted to come back.

  My stomach knotted up. In the silence, the sounds of the room magnified. The air conditioner hummed, and the ice maker cranked out a few cubes in the freezer. Meg’s stomach made noises, which I pretended not to notice.

  “Well,” she said, running her hand along the underside of Herbert’s giant fluffy tail, “we lived in corporate housing. And then my parents split, and my mom has this little apartment.”

  God. That sounded awful. “Do you live with her?”

  “I live with my dad. I see her on weekends, usually. I have to be back in three weeks because she gets a week with me in July.”

  I must have looked confused, because she explained, “Custody agreement.”

  Why? I wanted to ask but couldn’t. Why was she with her dad? Why had her parents split up? Why was she here? “That must be rough.”

  She raised her eyebrows, staring into her lap. “There isn’t a single thing that hasn’t been rough. Not since I was thirteen.”

  My stomach dropped. “I can imagine. I mean. Same for me. Obviously.”

  She kind of looked me up and down. “You seem like you’re doing okay.”

  I thought about it. “What’s ‘okay’?”

  She smiled a little. “Right. That is a good question.” She fingered a lock of her hair. “Anyway. You’re probably wondering why I came. But too polite to ask.”

  I blushed as though I’d been caught out. God, she knew me.

  “I just . . . I really needed to see you,” she began.

  My heart jackhammered while my mind spun out fantasies. She hadn’t stopped loving me all these years. She wanted to get back together. She —

  “We need to talk, Otis.”

  And just like that, my wild hopes were dashed. Nothing good ever follows “we need to talk.” It means you fucked up, or you’re fired, or you’re dumped. It means something you are not going to want to hear.

  “I know I have some explaining to do,” she said into her lap, her hands still clutching the skunk. “And some apologizing — to put it mildly.”

  “I guess there’s lots that we could talk about,” I said. Like why you disappeared on me right when I needed you most. My stomach started to churn. “We don’t have to get into that stuff tonight,” I said. “You’re tired. There’s always tomorrow. Or some other day.” Or never.

  I was such a wimp. For three years I had longed to talk to Meg, and now that she was here I was too chickenshit to face what she might want to say.

  She opened her mouth to respond.

  I braced myself.

  And then voices. The sounds of a key card swiping the lock and the door creaking open. And there were our parents.

  I can’t say I was sorry to see them.

  Meg stood, but then seemed rooted to the spot. My mother was also frozen. My dad pushed through and greeted Meg, giving her an awkward hug. He looked back at my mom, who finally inched forward.

  “Meg,” she said, trying to smile. She moved toward her in hesitant steps. And then they were hugging, and my mom was crying — and not subtly. My mom doesn’t do “subtle” where emo
tions are concerned.

  When my mom finally let go of Meg, she said, “It’s good to see you. You’re just beautiful.”

  Meg wiped her eyes, and I realized she was crying, too. She looked at my mom like she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t get words out.

  Suddenly it overwhelmed me, the weight of the past, all the Mason in the room. In some ways, the last three years had been an infinity. But in other ways, the passage of time seemed to count for nothing.

  I scrambled to my feet. I didn’t want to leave Meg, but I wanted this scene to end — and end fast. I grabbed my backpack, and my mom moved toward me, wiping away tears.

  “Everything okay?” She spoke softly, doing a rapid analysis of my face and posture to calculate my psychological status.

  “Yup,” I said, shouldering my backpack. “Your teeth are black.”

  She made a face. “Petite Sirah. Like ink.”

  “Well, we’ll get out of your way,” my dad told Meg’s dad. “You must be tired. Give me a shout tomorrow.”

  “I will,” Jay said, clapping my dad on the shoulder. “Thanks for tonight. It was great to see you.”

  My mom, still sniffling, went over and gave him a hug.

  I froze. To hug Meg goodbye, or not?

  But Meg made the decision for me by coming over, arms extended, and giving me a very sweet hug. This time I didn’t stiffen up. Figures — we finally got it right, and it was while our parents were watching.

  My mom moved toward the door and said to Meg’s dad, “Let me know if you want the name of that Realtor.”

  He glanced at Meg. “As soon as Meg decides if she’s moving back. Otherwise, I’ll probably get an apartment in the city.”

  I stood there like a dolt, blinking at Meg. “You . . . You might move back?”

  She stood with her mouth open for a moment, blinking. “Maybe. That’s what I was going to tell you,” she said weakly, crossing her arms. “I have to figure that out.”

  The room was way too quiet. Finally, my mom broke the silence by saying how late it was. “Come on, Otis. You drive home.”

  I followed my parents out into the cool night, all of my mental whirring adding up to zero comprehension. We loaded my bike into the trunk and my dad handed me the car keys.

  I drove home on autopilot. Nobody spoke.

  I DREAMED I WAS AT A SWIM MEET BUT MY arms didn’t work — I just kicked in the water, panicking, and straining to catch someone’s eye so they’d help me before I drowned. Finally, I noticed Dara, sitting in one of the chairs on the deck. She just smirked at me as I went down, down, down.

  I awoke gasping for air, soaked in sweat. I kicked off the covers and waited for my heart rate to come down.

  What I had wanted was to dream of Meg. Of us kissing, of the desperate tangle of mouths and arms and legs.

  My subconscious was unsatisfactory.

  I picked up my phone. Time: 7:51. I reread the messages Meg had sent while I drove home from the hotel.

  I’m sorry you found out that way. I was just about to tell you myself, but then our parents . . . Anyway, I probably should’ve brought it up earlier. I meant to. But seeing you again — it was kind of overwhelming. Great, but overwhelming. You know?

  But yes, I have to decide whether to stay in CA with my mom or come back to Chicago. And to do that, I need to figure some things out. To see if I can be okay here. And okay with you.

  Well, I guess you’re busy — or maybe too mad to write back. I’m exhausted, so I’m gonna go to bed. I’m sorry, Otis.

  When I’d gotten home, I had reached out with a quick Sorry, I was driving — I’m home now message, but apparently she had gone to sleep already.

  I didn’t know what things she needed to figure out, but I was determined either to convince her to come back or to die trying.

  I went downstairs, cell phone in my sweatpants pocket, following the sound of my dad’s cheerful whistling. I found him in the kitchen, messing with the espresso machine he’d recently bought so he could stop contributing to Starbucks’ unholy wealth. Decked out in a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt, a Cubs hat, and his Budweiser pajama bottoms, the man was a mess. I had to smile.

  “Hey, Ot, want a latte?” he asked. They must love him at the office. He was so damn likable.

  “Sure.” I stood over his shoulder and watched him assembling parts, wondering if he had a clue what he was doing. “Where’s Mom?”

  He affixed a little plastic tube to a nozzle. “Grief support group.” He poured milk into a small metal pitcher.

  “I didn’t know she was still doing that.” Almost four years later? Mom kept talking about moving forward, but in some ways it looked more like she was going backward.

  He glanced up at me briefly. “Yeah. She still does.”

  He turned on the machine and lifted the pitcher of milk to the wand, which made the milk bubble and sputter. I crossed the kitchen and looked out the window. Two squirrels played chase in the backyard, twirling up and down the old birch tree. The thermometer outside the window read sixty-six already. I lifted the window open and was rewarded with a breeze that smelled of fresh-cut grass.

  “You going to see Meg today?” my dad said loudly over the noise of the machine. “You guys seemed like you were hitting it off okay last night, huh?”

  Was my dad playing matchmaker? This was quite a contrast to my mom, who I sometimes thought might have been happy if I never saw Meg again. Okay, maybe not happy, but less stressed, anyway. My dad wasn’t such a worrier. They balanced each other out like that.

  Maybe that’s what marriage was, in essence — an unspoken agreement regarding division of neuroses and quirks so that the bases were covered and neither partner stepped on the other’s toes. You be the worrier and control freak; I’ll stay cool and be flexible. You tolerate my love of everything retro and my tendency toward slovenliness, and I’ll try to be cheerful when you’re down and stay out of your way when you’re moody. I’ll deal with moldy food in the containers in the back of the fridge, but you will not ask me to deal with bugs or spiders. You’ll cook awesome meals, and I’ll do the dishes. I’ll let you weigh in on what wine to open, and you’ll never open anything without checking with me first so God forbid you don’t accidentally open something epic that should be cellared for another five or ten years. Those seemed to be aspects of my parents’ unwritten agreement. Somehow it worked.

  “I’ll drive you if you want to go to a movie or wherever,” he said. “I know Jay is meeting with work people today.”

  “I don’t know.” I sank into a chair at the table. “I have to swim.”

  “Oh, come on.” He poured the milk over the espresso. “On a Sunday?”

  Dara calls it seventh-day swimming. She says when I’m God, I can rest on Sunday. Besides, I blew off the day before, so skipping again wasn’t an option.

  My dad continued. “I’ll bet even Michael Phelps took days off when he was training.”

  I scowled and accepted the mug he handed me. “Not even Christmas Day.”

  My dad whistled. “I guess you have to be that devoted to make it to the Olympics.”

  He wasn’t helping.

  He gestured toward my mug. “Not too shabby, huh?”

  The foam at the top of my mug was creamy and billowy. “It is a thing of beauty,” I told him.

  “Starbucks ain’t got nothing on your old man.” He kissed his bicep — a gesture my mother couldn’t stand, but it must have been part of their unwritten agreement, because he still did it.

  He was showing me how he could grate whole nutmeg onto our lattes with the wood rasp from his tool box when my cell phone rang. I glanced at it with dread, expecting Dara.

  It was Meg. I lunged for my latte, almost knocking it over, and headed toward my room, answering the phone as I went.

  “Hey,” Meg said. “Am I calling too early?” The familiar, sweet sound of her voice made me desperate to be close to her again. She had a way of pronouncing her consonants, light on the ton
gue, that always made me want to get my ear right near her lips.

  “Ha, I’m a swimmer, remember? There’s no such thing as ‘too early.’ How’d you sleep?”

  “I was sleeping fine, until Jasper peed on my bed! I don’t know if he couldn’t find the litter box or if he’s just pissed at me, no pun intended.”

  I groaned. “Ugh, that sucks.”

  “Seriously, nothing gets that out. You know how they say nothing lasts forever? It should be amended to ‘nothing lasts forever, except cat pee.’”

  I laughed.

  “I have a feeling that the Extended Stay will be revising its pet policy soon.” She heaved a sigh.

  I set my coffee down on my desk and pulled opened the blinds, squinting against the sun. “Have you seen how bright it is outside?”

  A door creaked open on the other end of the phone. “Oh, wow. We have this little patio thingie off the back door.” She yawned. “I could use a latte.”

  “Ha! Guess what I’m drinking right now?”

  “You so are not drinking a latte.”

  “I so am! My dad made me one. He has a new machine.” I took a noisy slurp.

  She made a disgusted noise. “Lucky.”

  “You’re welcome to come and put my dad to work. Nothing makes him happier than being productive.”

  “That is a true thing. Remember how he was always getting my dad to do house projects?”

  I smiled. Meg’s dad would rather watch TV and hire a handyman, but my dad always wanted Jay to be his project pal. “Well, your dad got my dad to sit and watch sports sometimes, so maybe it was good for both of them.”

  “Yeah, it was. I think they’ve missed each other. I hope they’ll, you know, hang out again and stuff.”

  Unanswered questions hung heavily in the air. The question of our mothers’ friendship. The question of mine and Meg’s. The question of whether Meg would also move back and what, exactly, she needed to figure out before she made that decision.

  “Anyway,” she said after a moment. A chair scraped and cars whizzed by in the background. “What are you doing today?”