“The last week has been a mess,” he says after a beat. “You order food. I’m going to run out and get wine because Natick is no longer a dry town and I deserve a nice glass of something. Maybe a few glasses. Let’s have a night.”
* * *
I’ve never had wine like this. I mean, I haven’t had much wine in general. The few times I’ve had alcohol, it’s been beer, mostly.
I have no big thoughts about alcohol being good or bad, but this wine tastes like dessert, and I did not know that was possible. I like this wine, and I like that I get to have it with Seth, who has decided that our evening of “writer’s self-care” will be eating crab rangoon, pairing it with this alcohol, and processing all that’s happened.
He thinks my mood is about Grandma, and technically it’s related to that, but it’s really that I will never be able to erase Chris’s reaction in the hallway from my brain. His response to my not moving in—to my moving away for good—was relief.
“I want to know what my mother was watching before she died,” Seth says, distracting me. “Let’s watch what she was watching.”
We lay out the food and turn on the television. It turns out that the last thing Grandma was watching was what I feared it might be, and I groan.
“What?” Seth says. “What is it?”
“It’s Poldark,” I say, and fall back onto the couch. “The last thing she saw was Poldark.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
I explain to Seth that it is a public television series about a man in Revolutionary War times who comes home to England to find out that his girlfriend is marrying somebody else. I’ve seen many episodes with Grandma. The show manages to be sexy and boring at the same time.
“What is Poldark, though?” he asks. “The house? Or the person?”
“Him. He’s Poldark. Like the family name. Ross Poldark. Like Seth Seltzer. You’d just be Seltzer.”
“Hmm,” Seth says.
We start watching an episode, and Seth is riveted, of course. He and Grandma had the same taste.
“I don’t know why you don’t like this,” he says.
“I don’t like history unless there’s time travel, and even then, it’s usually too many women characters wearing petticoats, or whatever, and not having any rights.”
Seth points to the actor onscreen. “That’s not the point,” he says. “Look at him, shirt off, nipples out, threshing his grain.”
I start laughing really hard, and the wine makes it a cackle. It is baffling to me that Mrs. Burke, Mom, and Seth are around the same age. Mrs. Burke is the ultimate calm, dependable parent, Mom is the opposite, but Seth is like . . . cool and hilarious and like a friend.
“Why isn’t Mom like you?” I ask him, slurring a little.
Seth sits up from his stretched-out position on the couch. I’m in my favorite spot, the worn-out, cushiony love seat that Grandma kept threatening to replace.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“You’re twins, but you’re, like, human in a way Mom isn’t. Instead of just being a person, she reads all those stupid books about how to be a person. It’s so annoying.”
“Everybody thinks their mom is annoying,” Seth says. “It’s human nature.”
“You had Grandma Sheryl as your mother,” I protest.
“And I thought she was annoying, at least when I was your age. Maybe not as annoying as your mom, but there were definitely years when I locked myself in my room,” Seth says. “And anyway, your mother loved you from the moment you were born. I didn’t pay attention to you from the age of, like, seven to thirteen. You were annoying and weird those years, and I had no interest. Your mom was into you the whole time.”
I always forget that. How Seth sort of went away.
“You got interesting again, by the way. Good for you,” he says.
“I was always interesting!” I say.
“You thought you were interesting,” Seth says. “All kids think they’re interesting, but really, they’re not. Most children are very boring.”
“I got suspended in middle school for a day for telling kids not to stand for the pledge! Because it was fascist! Mom had to take me to the superintendent; it was when we were living in New Jersey. That was totally interesting!”
“Eh,” Seth says.
I know he’s teasing.
“What happened at Chris’s?” he asks then.
I must look surprised.
“You ran over there and came back all sulky and weird,” he explains. “I want to know everything.”
I take a deep breath, and then I tell him everything that happened at the Burke’s. It’s embarrassing to say it out loud, to recount how happy Chris looked to hear his mom reject my proposal.
“Lori,” Seth says after some consideration. “It would have been a struggle for you to live there.”
“Why? It would have been ideal. The Burkes are perfect parents. I could have used that.”
“Look, I love the Burkes. They seem great. But you’re clearly into Chris, like obsessed with him, and I just don’t see living with a crush—in a very rule-abiding traditional house, by the way—as being pleasurable or healthy for you. It would be a repressed nightmare, to be honest.”
“I’m not obsessed with Chris,” I say.
“You look at him like I’m looking at this man threshing his grain,” Seth says, pointing to the television.
“We’re story partners,” I say. “He illustrates my stories.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“We’re best friends.”
Seth doesn’t believe me. I have no energy to lie anymore, to him or myself.
“I do like him like that,” I say, “but it won’t happen, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Does he not feel the same way?” Seth asks. “It seems like he cares about you a lot. Has he ever hinted about romantic feelings?”
“We’ve only talked about it once,” I say. “Like, not long after we met, when I first started here. We were working on a story, and I was getting a weird vibe from him, and I was probably giving off weird energy too. I asked him if he’d ever thought about it—being together—and he said yes, and then we sort of talked it out and decided there was too much to lose.”
I’ve never had to articulate this before. It’s not easy.
“I love Chris as a friend, as more than a friend, but that friendship, and the way we create things together, that’s what I need forever. I can have feelings for other people and be with them and break up with them, but I can’t do that with Chris, because I choose for him to be permanent, you know? He’s too important to turn into some short-lived romantic thing. He felt the same way when we talked about it. We’re best friends. Whatever attraction is there is less important than the other ways we connect, you know?
“Honestly,” I add, thinking about it, “it’s the most responsible decision I’ve ever made.”
“Have you dated other people?”
I laugh. I don’t know what he means by dating.
“I was hooking up with this guy Frankie on the lacrosse team for a while in the fall, but then we got bored, I think,” I say.
“Lacrosse player. Good for you,” Seth says.
“Chris was with this girl in his math class for like three weeks last year, but it wasn’t a big deal. I think we’re both just into our work, you know? He’s pretty introverted. We like our alone time, or just hanging out with Jess and Jason. Whatever romantic feelings I have for him—and I mean, yeah, sometimes they’re excruciating, especially lately. But I can ignore them to make this last. We’re good with how we are.”
“That sounds good . . . I guess,” Seth says. “Deeply frustrating but good.”
“That’s why I’m mad at him. I work so hard every second I’m with him not to act on the way I feel about him, so we never have to break up. Our friendship and stories are the most important thing in our lives. Why wouldn’t he want me to stay with him—so we can do what we love, together, for senior year? This
year is supposed to be everything.”
“Maybe you should ask him.”
Seth is right. But I wonder about putting Chris on the spot. I wonder whether he’d be honest with me if it might hurt my feelings.
“Think of it this way,” Seth adds. “If you’re in Maryland, you won’t have to manage lust over him in person. You can continue your relationship by text and keep a shared Google Doc if you still want to write together. Plus, it’s only one year. You could wind up in college together. Maybe this space will be good.”
I want to argue, but we’re interrupted because Poldark is yelling.
“What’s he upset about?” Seth says.
“Poldark is upset about a lot of things every episode,” I say.
I stand up to get some water and then jump when I see a silhouette of a person pass by the window. The shade is down, so all I see is the body.
“Someone’s here,” I yell to Seth, scrambling back to the center of the living room.
Seth jumps up too.
“Just stay where you are,” he says. “It’s probably some kid playing outside or something.”
He pulls the string to raise the shade, and we see the Garden Girls in the backyard. All five of them are there, at sunset. Kevin, who’s closest to the window, has taken the hose attached to the back of the house and is walking it to Grandma’s small garden.
They’re watering the plants back there. We wouldn’t have thought to do it.
“Look at that,” Seth says.
Jill, who’s inspecting a bed of tulips, sees us in the window and waves.
They’re not ready to let go of the house—or Grandma—either. Seth and I give them a wave back and lower the blind to give them privacy.
Seth falls back onto the couch. He closes his eyes.
I need to get water. Even with the wine, my body is not ready to relax. I need to come up with a new plan.
Even the foggiest version of my brain—even the part of it that is angry with Chris and hurt by his private rejection—tells me it’s best for both of us if I stay right here.
Chapter 6
August in Natick is good for no one.
Even if you like summer heat, you will be suffocated by the humid steaminess. There is no escape from it. Not here, where there is no water to make a breeze, and where the asphalt draws the sun to the ground like a laser. I vaguely remember our short stint in Cleveland being worse—that was middle school—but Natick is still pretty bad.
At night, though, I can take it. I almost like it.
Grandma never had many rules for me, but she was clear about two of them: I was not allowed alone outside after ten p.m., and the door was to be locked at all times, especially if I was home by myself. Our street looks very safe, but people are people, Grandma would say. One never knows.
But she’s not here anymore, and after tonight, now that Seth is fast asleep in the spare bedroom, maybe dreaming of Ross Poldark, I need air, and I need to break a rule. To think about everything that’s happened. To think about that face Chris made, his look of relief that I will never be able to delete from my memory for as long as I live. There is too much in my brain right now, because the second I compartmentalize Chris’s reaction this afternoon, I think about the cremains, and the evidence of how small we all get when we are gone. Remains aren’t much to leave behind. They are easily stepped on.
I imagine more families with strollers walking around our perfect patch of green, dogs peeing on it, people stomping around and having picnics near it, not knowing what’s beneath them. Less than two weeks ago my grandmother was watching Poldark. Now she is fertilizer. Toxic fertilizer, according to Kel.
I can’t lie in bed and think about it anymore. I can’t stare at the ceiling—or, more specifically, Chris’s fictional mall portal to another dimension, because he wouldn’t want to join me there, apparently.
I slide out of my room as quietly as possible, stopping to put on flip-flops. I can’t imagine that Seth would enforce Grandma’s rules or even know them, but I don’t want him to see me sneaking out of the house after eleven. Mainly because he might try to join me, and as much as he is the best company I can imagine right now, I want to be by myself.
I take my keys so that I can lock up behind me. I’ll follow that rule, at least.
Outside, the street is empty. I hear crickets. The heat is like a blanket. I can smell that someone had a barbecue. Probably the Rodmans three doors down.
This is the first place I’ve lived where I’ve known the names of my neighbors.
It’s so dark on our street when it’s this late. I can see the glow coming from Route 9 and the mall in the distance. It looks ethereal, like something religious might be happening over there. I know I’m being dramatic, but it seems to be calling me. I want to be there. It’s been kind of like a North Star for three years, how I know I’m close to home.
It’s not that far to the mall, but the walk is a little awkward. I have to cross this crazy part of Route 9 to get there. At least during the day, cars are moving slowly. There’s so much traffic to get into the shopping centers it’s unlikely that someone will come plowing toward you. But at night it feels risky, like I should run. If a car comes out of nowhere, the driver won’t get much of a chance to see me and slow down.
It takes me about fifteen minutes to get to the dangerous part, and then I sprint right over it. As soon as I’m on the other side, I feel like an idiot for not bringing an ID or a phone or a wallet. All I have is my keys in the pockets of my thin sweatpants.
I have to admit that even though I’d rather buy things at small stores that sell vintage stuff—clothing that has a backstory (so it might be haunted)—I like this mall and the way it’s designed. There’s been a mall like this near every town I’ve lived in, but the one in Natick kind of looks like a castle. The outside of Neiman Marcus reminds me of a big metal wave, as if they were trying to make it look like an important monument, as opposed to a place where you can buy a purse.
I walk by that Neiman Marcus now, feeling small, and move to where I’ll be farther from the street and any cars that might pass.
I like the feel of the paved parking lot under my flip-flops. I like the smell here, some oily combination of chain restaurant food and gasoline. There are a few abandoned cars in the lot, probably left by people who are still at the movie theater or maybe had dinner at one of the mall restaurants and were too drunk to drive home.
I’ve never been here this late. I don’t know why I’m loving it so much, but it seems like a supernatural event has happened and everyone has disappeared. There is an old movie called Night of the Comet—Chris and I have watched it twice—where everyone gets wiped away by an astrological event, but some teens are left behind and they spend one long scene in a mall just taking whatever they want.
I think of that now as I play imaginary hopscotch through the parking spaces, my flip-flops slapping against the back of my feet.
“I am here,” I say out loud as I jump.
I walk to the center of one of the open spaces and lie down. This is my property right now. It is my parking lot kingdom. The concrete is surprisingly soft, and the asphalt smells even sweeter down here. I am sure the back of my light blue tank top and gray sweatpants are covered in parking lot grease, but I don’t care. There is no one around to yell at me about it.
I open my arms and legs wide and pretend to make a mall parking lot snow angel. I feel a nice light scratch through the cotton on the back of my legs.
I wonder if I’ll get the chance to be inside the mall one last time. I’m sure the mall near Bill’s place in Maryland has some of the same stuff, but I will miss this particular Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen because I went to them with Grandma.
I close my eyes. I could actually take a nap right here—finally, I’m tired enough to sleep—but then I hear a brush of something and footsteps, and I shoot to my feet, imagining that everything Grandma told me about Natick after dark is true, that there’s
some man who’s about to kidnap me, and everyone will say, “Well, that’s what she got for being alone after midnight in a mall parking lot without her phone.”
I imagine a headline: THE GIRL WHO DISAPPEARED AT NEIMAN MARCUS.
There’s a body coming toward me from the road. Shit.
It’s a slight outline but tallish, and I think I should run, but where do I go? I can’t bolt toward the highway, back in the direction of the house, because the person is approaching from there. I don’t want to run toward the other side of the mall. It’ll only be more secluded over there.
I decide to stay put. I am not capable of taking part in a chase. I’m wearing a bra without underwire, which is basically a non-bra for someone like me, and even when I have excellent support, I am a very slow runner.
The only thing I can think to do is creep to one of the empty cars and disappear behind it, so I do. It’s a large sedan, which provides some good cover.
I can’t see anything now; the car is blocking my view, so I freeze in my squatting position and try not to breathe. But I can hear the footsteps closer and closer. And then I realize that I’m an idiot. Maybe the person coming toward me owns this sedan and is coming to retrieve his car.
Maybe he’s someone who went to Dave & Busters or something, and now he just wants to drive home.
Honestly, I should not be out of the house at this hour.
Tap tap tap.
The man—I assume he’s a man, although I can’t be sure—is tapping on the car window. I hold my breath.
He taps again, three times.
“Oh god,” I whisper.
“Hello,” he says.
I exhale, relief flooding my entire body. The voice is not a stranger’s.
“Excuse me, madame,” Chris says. “Are you stealing this car?”
I stand up, and after squatting for that long, my legs feel like jelly.
“What if I am?” I say, putting my hands on my hips.
“This car feels too business-casual for you,” he says. “I picture you stealing something retro, like a big van.”
“A school bus we could paint.”
Things That Grow Page 10