Beyond the Pale

by Jennifer Millikin

  While we wait for the light to turn, Brady jogs in place. This annoys me. I know it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, keeping my muscles warm while I wait, but I can’t stand running in place. It feels pointless.

  “What do you think of Lennon?” I don’t look at him as I say the words. I look to my left, to where an agave plant is sprouting that weird stalk through its center, the thing Lennon says looks like a giant asparagus.

  “What do you mean?” There’s apprehension in Brady’s voice. I can hear it.

  I look at him. That fucker is still jogging in place.

  “It’s been eight years since we’ve seen her.”

  Brady shakes his head. “I see her on social media all the time.”

  For a moment I think of reaching out and shoving him off balance. I won’t do it though. As tense as things have been, Brady is my best friend. There’s something familiar and nice about having someone like that. Someone who knows the ugliness that lives inside you, and sticks around anyway. Despite our differences, and the fact we both love the same woman, Brady knows my past and, as much as I hate my past, it’s important to be around someone who knows it.

  “I didn’t mean on social media—” The light turns and Brady starts. It’s harder for me. My muscles feel sluggish. Jogging in place would’ve been a good idea. Ahead of me, Brady bounds across the asphalt like a damn gazelle. Asshole.

  We’re finished with the run and getting breakfast at a little place called The Wily Coyote. It’s one of those hipster places with an ironic name. I roll my eyes when we walk in, and Brady smirks, but secretly I dig it. The floors are concrete, the lighting overhead is on strings, and the counter where we order is made up of old license plates.

  Brady buys breakfast and finds a table. I’m not sure if he buys because that’s what he always did when we were kids, assuming I didn’t have money (he assumed correctly), or he’s just being nice.

  “What’s his prognosis?” Brady asks after I tell him about my uncle.

  “Not good. He’s doing chemo but his doctor doesn’t think it will help much. And he refuses to quit smoking.” When I left this morning, Jeff had a Marlboro dangling between his lips. The sight didn’t surprise me. I called him the day I drove down to Agua Mesa from the cabin to meet Lennon, and he warned me he hadn’t quit. What’s the point of quitting now? he’d asked.

  I could’ve argued with him, but there was no point in that either. Jeff will do what he wants, and the nagging and advice of me and his doctor won’t change his mind.

  Besides, from what I can tell, smoking is the only thing that brings Jeff happiness. He sits in that trailer all day, living off social security, watching the military channel and chain-smoking.

  I never had a dad. My mom was Jeff’s little sister, and when she died with a needle in her arm, he took care of me. He wasn’t very good at it, but at least he was there. It’s a sad state of affairs when all you need to be father of the year is just to be in the same room with a kid. Jeff was drunk most of the time and lazy more than half the time, but I never went hungry.

  It wasn’t only me who didn’t get the best care. Jeff has never taken good care of himself either, so it comes to no surprise that he won’t stop smoking. The only person who seems surprised is Brady.

  I can see the wheels in Brady’s head turning. I imagine his thoughts running faster and harder than we just did. His brows furrow as he thinks, and his cheekbones stand out. It only makes him more good-looking.

  I’m as straight as a guy can be, but even I can recognize when another dude hit the genetic jackpot. Brady has that Adonis this going on, and I wonder if that’s ever to his detriment. Does he get sick of looking like a Greek god? Probably not. It goes part and parcel with his hero persona.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” I tell him, taking a bite of my food. The hipsters add bacon, tomato relish, and cilantro to their avocado toast and it’s fucking delicious.

  “If there was a way we could convince Jeff—”

  I shake my head, and he takes a moment before deciding to listen to me. Finally he grabs his own avocado toast.

  I swallow my bite and explain. “Jeff doesn’t have shit to live for. Why take away the only thing that makes him happy?”

  “So you want to just send him to the grave without intervening? Without even attempting to?”

  Of course that’s what Brady would do. Brady the savior. Brady the good ol' boy.

  But not me. I don’t see this as a situation needing to be rectified.

  “He doesn’t need intervention, Brady. He needs comfort while he dies.”

  Brady swipes at the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. “And you’re not worried you’ll feel guilty after?”

  “For what?”

  Brady’s expression is earnest, and it’s starting to annoy me. He’s the real-life equivalent of Captain America. “If you’re not part of the solution—”

  “I’m part of the problem?” Grabbing hot sauce from the end of the table, I twist off the cap and shake it over my food. “I’m not the cancer, Brady. I’m not killing him.”

  “I never said you were the killer, Finn.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Brady’s gaze hardens. “I didn’t say that back then, either.”

  “You doubted me.”

  Brady looks away, his gaze on something other than me. I don’t need him to admit it. We both know it’s true. Brady went to bat for me, sending his lawyer to the station to save me, but I knew he wondered.

  Honestly, it was easy to cast a suspicious glance my way. Back then I was angry pretty much all the time and prone to emotional outbursts. Add to it that I told Brady I wanted to kill the fucker for what he did to Lennon, and of course I’d be a natural suspect. I meant it, too. I wanted to kill him.

  I lean against the padded seat back of the booth. “Water under the bridge, man.” I say it because it’s easier to let it go. The sting of Brady’s doubt has never truly left me, like a wound that refuses to heal. I told the police I had nothing to do with Lennon’s stepdad taking a sudden dirt nap. Their disbelief didn’t surprise me. Much like my uncle’s refusal to stop smoking, it seemed natural.

  “Right. Water under the bridge,” Brady echoes.

  Small talk carries us through the rest of breakfast. Brady talks about his firm and speaks carefully about a new case. His voice is devoid of any excitement.

  We get up to leave, and as I’m tossing a few dollars onto the table Brady’s hand lands on my shoulder.

  “Jeff might not say it, but I’m betting if there were anything to live for, it’d be you.”

  11

  Now

  “Oh my god, Laine. I’m so happy to hear your voice.” I switch my phone to my left ear and lift a shoulder to keep it there. I need both hands to carry this box out to the car.

  “How’s it going out there?”

  I set the box in the car with a loud huff and turn around, resting half my behind on the trunk. Down the street, someone rolls their garbage can out to the curb. He waves, and I wave back.

  “Someone down the street is taking their trash to the curb.” I pause, planting both feet on the ground and standing to stretch.

  “And that’s bad because…?”

  “The garbage truck comes tomorrow. And it’s only nine in the morning here. That’s not bad, Laine. That’s sad. Does this person live a life that will produce no more garbage between now and tomorrow morning?”

  “Depressing.”

  “I know. Maybe they are depressed. Maybe—”

  “No,” Laine interrupts me. “I mean you. You’re depressing.”

  “Oh.”

  I head back inside to resume the job I’ve been doing since I woke at five, the sun screaming into my face because I forgot to close the curtains. Why did my mom have to die in the summertime? Couldn’t she have passed away in March? Arizona is lovely in March.

  “Is it tough being there?” Laine asks, her volume decreasing as
the sound of her concern increases.

  “Yes and no. But mostly yes.”

  “Honey…”

  My eyes sting. When Laine’s worried, or feeling extra emotional toward me, she calls me pet names usually reserved for lovers. Babe, sweetie, my love. It makes me miss her more.

  It’s not just her I miss. It’s the way things were before my mom died, when I could continue living blindly, pretending my childhood didn’t exist.

  “I’m going through the house. My room first. Then I’ll move on to her stuff.”

  “I’m sorry you have to deal with all that.”

  I walk back down the hall and into my room, where it looks as though a tornado has ripped through. “It had to happen sometime.”

  “You could come back here, you know? Do everything from afar?”

  “And what would I do about this house? All her things?”

  “There are people for that.”

  I laugh. When you have money, like Laine does, there are people for everything.

  Forgetting for a moment that I’m broke, I imagine hopping on the next plane with my tail between my legs. In just a few short hours I could be back in Dallas, curled up on the couch with Laine and watching something mindless.

  But no.

  “Laine, I need to rewrite history.”

  “And how are you going to go about doing that?”

  “I’m still figuring that out. But I can’t let this place define me any longer. Or control me.”

  “So don’t.”

  I laugh derisively. “Just like that, huh?”

  “Have you been to the church?”

  Her subject change is because she has about as much of an idea of how to rewrite history as I do.

  I tell her about Wilma and Elliot, and Pastor Thomas.

  “Elliot reminds me of myself. She was wearing this cute hat and—”

  “When are you going to tell me?”

  I sigh. “Tell you what?” I know what she’s getting at, but I’m putting it off.

  “When are you going to tell me about Finn and Brady?”

  I sink down on the bed. The mirror above my dresser is crammed with pictures, stuffed in the tiny space between the frame and the glass. Some are group shots, taken during church camp, but most of them are of me and my guys. Brady and Finn. The boys who saved me. The men who ruined me for any chance at falling in love with someone who isn’t them.

  I’ve dated, but not much. I’ve slept with two of the men I’ve dated, but only because I knew, after a certain time period, it was expected of me. I could have taken a stand, made a different choice, but it was so much easier not to, and anyway, each time I went to bed with them, I lay down thinking that maybe this time would be the time I would start to love my guys a little less. But, no. I guess something like that couldn’t happen because my heart wasn’t really there. It was elsewhere; half of it in Chicago, the other half in California.

  “Finn and Brady are good, Laine. They are men now. It’s... shocking.” I laugh softly. “You know what I mean.”

  “Sure do,” Laine agrees, and I know she’s referring to her high school boyfriend. She ran into him last year and, despite having a boyfriend of her own, it took Laine a few days to recover from seeing the grown-up version of the boy who stole her teenage heart.

  “So,” she continues, “did all the feelings come rushing back?”

  I nod my head, then remember she can’t see me. “There was no way to stop them, Laine. Like my feelings are a runaway train. They fly forward and I have no chance of hitting the brakes. Even when I try.”

  Laine groans softly. “You are so screwed.”

  “Basically.” If it weren’t for the years that have passed since I left or the empty house, I could be eighteen again, in love with my two best friends, and terrified of losing either of them if I were to ever make a choice.

  Lying back on my bed, I throw a forearm over my eyes dramatically. “Maybe one day soon we’ll all get sick of this dance we do around one another. Maybe,” I say slowly, “they will choose for me.”

  Laine snorts. “Please. Do not tell me you just said that.”

  I open my eyes and look up at the ceiling. “Fine. I did not just say that.”

  “Lennon, listen to me. Whether you know it or not, something inside your body knows the truth. I don’t know that it’s your brain, or your heart, maybe it’s your subconscious. You cannot love both of these people equally. You have to love one of them more than the other. Which one of them makes you feel your heart?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. That’s the god’s honest truth. I love them both. How could I not?

  “How much longer are you going to be there?”

  Laine’s question releases me from having to think about her prior question.

  “Why? Do you want your car back?”

  Laine laughs. “Sure do. Your car is a piece of shit.”

  My shoulders shake as I laugh silently. “I may never come back. Maybe I’ll ride off into the sunset in your shiny, fancy car.”

  “In this daydream, who is riding in your passenger seat?”

  I groan audibly and roll over, using a hand to push myself off the bed.

  “I’m just messing with you. You make it so easy.”

  “Thanks, Laine.” I glance around at the stacks of boxes headed to donation, then out toward the rest of the house. “I better get going. I have a lot more work to do.”

  “Do you want me there? Just say the word. I’ll bring wine. In three hours we could be drunk and going through all your mom’s stuff.”

  “I really appreciate it, but no.” I don’t want Laine in this house. Laine is from my Second Life, a life I started on my own. It’s unsullied, and I want to keep it that way.

  Laine and I hang up. I take a deep breath and go out to the kitchen to make lunch. Last night, on the way home from Brady’s, I stopped for groceries. Not a lot, but just enough to get me through the next few days.

  With a plate in one hand and a bag of chips secured between my teeth, I grab a handful of the black plastic lawn bags I found in the garage. I take the stairs slowly, as if even my limbs know how badly I don’t want to start cleaning out my mother’s room. I start in her closet first, pulling item after item off their hangers and stuffing them into a bag. I alternate between taking bites of my sandwich and cleaning, and my mind wanders.

  I told Laine it was shocking that Finn and Brady were men now, and I meant it. But I’d already known how Brady had grown, and not from social media. Two years ago, Brady came to Dallas for work.

  He was already in town when he called.

  He said he wouldn’t accept my excuses, even as my lips were poised to give them.

  He asked me to have dinner with him after his meetings finished.

  I wanted to say no. I felt guilty for seeing him without Finn. Guilt like that can only be felt if there’s something to feel guilty about. And there was.

  We weren’t kids anymore, and I knew that the moment I stepped from my apartment wearing my black dress, the soft fabric pouring over my skin like melted butter.

  Laine was gone for the weekend, on her first out of town trip with her new boyfriend. When she came back, I didn’t tell her I saw Brady.

  Two Years Ago

  I walk into the restaurant with a confidence I don’t feel. Appearing nervous seems abhorrent, something the childhood me would’ve done. Brady needs to know I’ve made it out of Agua Mesa, that the girl who spent her life on the receiving end of other peoples shit no longer exists. I know this isn’t true, but oh my god do I want it to be.

  Brady’s waiting for me at the bar. He’s standing, leaning one muscular forearm on the edge of the bar top. His white button-up shirt is rolled up almost to his elbows. He’s trim, his jaw strong, and his hands are curved around a glass filled with something clear. When I get closer, I spot a lime swimming between the ice cubes.

  Brady straightens. He reaches for me, his eyes lighting up with recognition. He hugs me
carefully, like he’s folding his parts around mine, mindful of what’s touching. Until this moment, I hadn’t remembered how his hugs were before: crushing, all-consuming, with no thought as to what body parts were touching. Disappointment blossoms inside me.

  He pulls away, gesturing at the open seat beside him. “Do you want to have a drink before dinner?”

  I nod, settling beside him and ordering a glass of wine. When it arrives, I take a long drink. Brady’s eyes stay on me.

  “You’re beautiful, Lennon.”

  I smile, my insides warming from his words. “I always loved the way you compliment. You make statements.”

  He averts his gaze, and I smirk. “You can give a compliment, but you still can’t take one?”

  One side of his mouth curls up and he looks back to me. “I’m working on it.”

  “How have you been, Brady?”

  “I’m working for a prestigious law firm in Chicago. I have a nice apartment, on the weekends I sail on the lake with some of my frat brothers—”

  My waving hand stops him. “I don’t want the social media version of you. I know that person already. I want the real you.”

  Brady’s tongue darts out, licking across his top lip. His head dips low while one palm rubs the back of his neck. He looks at me and clears his throat.

  “Still perceptive, I see.” He smiles at me, and I feel my lips curving, my smile automatic in response to his.

  I say nothing. I’m waiting.

  “The firm is prestigious. That’s not a lie. It’s also a giant time suck. I’m working twelve-hour days, and sometimes I keep working when I get home. There was a time when twelve-hour days were something I aspired to. Like working so much was something to brag about.” He shakes his head. “It’s not. A lot of the guys work like that for a while, and then it tapers off when they have kids. Maybe I have to do the grunt work now, pave the way for a shorter workweek later.” He lifts a hand into the air, his palm flat and parallel with the bar top. “This is the trajectory. Work now,” he says, his hand moving slowly through the air, dipping lower as he goes. “Then less, and less, until what? Even later, a forty-hour workweek will sound like a joke. That exists for other people. My job? Not so much.”