A Slippery Slope

by Tanya Gallagher

That’s how it was with him, right from the start. It was like he already knew my secret spaces, like he was already written under my skin. Even now I can’t run away from the fact of him, the twenty-three-year-old Jackson who looked sexy and dangerous as always, the feeling that I’m always going to be sixteen around him.

  I groan and sink back into my mattress. I’m never leaving the house again, I text. It’s not a real-life option, but I could certainly call it a pipe dream.

  You’ll be fine, Abby replies. Just get up.

  I glare at the phone but she’s right, and now that I’m awake, I’m awake. The only option besides hiding in Gayle’s guesthouse till my hair goes gray is getting the hell out of Swan’s Hollow. Seeing Jackson last night was just a reminder of why I hadn’t wanted to come home in the first place. Coming back here was a mistake—a necessary mistake—but it was still a mistake. My heart wants to be in Boston, even if I’m on my own. If I’m going to go back to my life in the city, I’m going to need a game plan. And I’m going to need some money.

  While Abigail’s right that I don’t need a prince to rescue me, the funds for my single-lady return to Boston are running dry. I hate to admit it, but having a boyfriend with deep pockets had its perks, including a low rent check. I’ve got enough money saved for a deposit on a cheap apartment, but my checking account is low enough to make me regret blowing my last paycheck on Matthew’s birthday extravaganza.

  So, a job it is.

  I park in the lot that McCafferty’s Books—the bookstore that Abigail manages—shares with Holy Grounds Coffee. The little café gave me both my first taste of coffee and my first taste of financial freedom, funding everything from my prom dress to the Twizzlers I used to buy at the deli for late-night snacks. I spent the last year of high school brewing espresso for Mr. Spence, the shop owner, and learning exactly how to recognize the signs of caffeine deprivation on people’s faces.

  The tiny coffee shop runs a booming business, given that Starbucks has not yet made its way to Swan’s Hollow, and it looks exactly the same as when I left it. The coffee is hot and strong but the shop itself is a throwback to more puritan times, the walls covered with proverbs about sustenance and coffee. “So that you may not be sluggish…” Hebrews 6:12, and “Be the aroma of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 2:15.

  Massachusetts is such a mix of innovation and tradition—we’ve got MIT and Harvard and were the first state to allow same-sex marriage, but it’s illegal for a restaurant or bar to have happy hour. The quotes on the wall at Holy Grounds are so typical of my home state, and I want to roll my eyes every time I see them.

  “May the master pour on the love so it fills our lives and splashes over on everyone around you.” 1 Thessalonians 3:12.

  I don’t know about anyone else, but if coffee is supposed to stand for love, I don’t want it splashed on everyone. What a fucking mess.

  In high school I used to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from laughing when I read those words. Now, as I peer through the front window of the shop, all I see is the chipped paint in the hand-stenciled letters and a hundred memories of me and Jackson and Abigail and everyone else who used to be part of my world.

  I stop just inside the doorway to take a deep, appreciative breath. The smell of butter is so thick in the air that I almost swoon. I look longingly at the little pastries lined up in the display case, croissants with glistening tops, muffins studded with cinnamon chips and crumbling brown sugar streusel. The taste of coffee sits on my tongue. But that’s not what I came for.

  “Hey,” I call to the barista behind the counter, her eyes glued to her cell phone. She looks young, with her hair scraped into a bouncy blond ponytail and wide eyes rimmed with mascara. I feel a million years old.

  The girl looks up from her phone, irritated at the interruption. “Can I help you?” It’s more of a challenge than a question.

  “Is Mr. Spence in?”

  She heaves a put-upon sigh and walks to the back room. She doesn’t return, but a minute later Spence appears behind the counter, the standard grimace plastered on his face. His low, heavy eyebrows make him look perpetually grumpy. And he usually is.

  “Hi Mr. Spence.” I make myself sound as cheerful as I can muster, and I take care to avoid touching the bakery case. If I leave fingerprints it’ll drive him crazy once I’m gone.

  “Miss Bloom.” Spence is always sort of formal and crotchety at the same time, a strange amalgam of good manners and silent judgement. “What can I get for you?”

  I shift, suddenly nervous. God, is everything in this town going to reduce me to a version of myself that I thought I’d left behind?

  “I was actually wondering if you need any help at the shop. I’m back in town for a bit and would love to pick up some hours.”

  He eyes me over the counter. “What have you been doing with yourself?” I swear he’s digging for dirt. If he knew the truth that I’m a scandalous girl, living in sin, who got my ass cheated on, he’d probably say it serves me right for being so sacrilegious. Ugh.

  “I’m working my way through school,” I lie. When a leave of absence turns into three years, they don’t keep your seat warm anymore.

  The truth is, that summer after I kissed Jackson, I ran back to Boston in a hurry. I spent the whole first semester of my sophomore year unraveling, my world splintering apart. At the heart of it was everything left unsaid with Jackson, the fact that when I left him behind I was also leaving one of my best friends, my safety net. But it was more than that, too. Everything in my life felt so unsettled and I felt adrift at school.

  When you’re lonely, Boston is a yawning place, full of inky, unforgiving nights that last forever. I wore through two pairs of sneakers in as many months, pacing the streets at night because I couldn’t breathe when I sat inside my cramped dorm room. It wasn’t like I had a chance of sleeping and I didn’t want to look at myself anymore, didn’t want to admit there were tendrils of bitterness strangling out all the familiar parts of me.

  By Thanksgiving I had met Matthew and I ran to him with open arms, afraid of what was behind me. Matthew was older and he liked my quirks and the way I chewed the side of my thumb when I was thinking. He liked the way I looked, curled naked in his sheets at night. When he asked me to move in with him, the decision was easy. Rent was cheaper than the dorm room I shared with two other girls, and the sprawling apartment he’d selected made me feel like I was staying in a penthouse in some ritzy hotel. Life with Matthew was an escape from the hole I had started to fall into.

  Suddenly my fancy art school seemed so stupid and paralyzing, this endless cycle of pleasing everyone else—waiting for their approval, waiting for good grades—before I could graduate and move on with my life. I realized I didn’t need the degree to start living my life. Here I was with a boyfriend, holding down a job at a coffee shop. I wanted to be a writer, anyway, to do something impossible and too big to hold in my hands. Maybe if I was actually writing a book instead of papers, I’d get somewhere. When I added it all up, another two and a half years of school seemed so unnecessary. I quit and never went back.

  Unfortunately, my long-term thinking with that move may not have been so great, because almost every job listing I’ve come across has asked for a college degree. In Swan’s Hollow, I’m probably qualified for about three jobs—cashier at the bookstore, which Abigail has told me is a no-go since they’re fully staffed; bartender at Hooligans, which is out thanks to the staggeringly high odds of seeing Jackson again; and a stint back at my high school employer, Holy Grounds.

  Luckily, I can make coffee really, really well. And Spence knows it, too.

  “I hired this high school girl and she’s been all over the place with attendance.” Spence cuts his eyes toward the back room. “Are you going to show up on time or are you going to give me trouble?”

  If he’s talking behind his barista’s back now—hell, practically in front of her face—what’s he going to say about me? I grit my teeth. “I’ll have perfect attendance, as alw
ays. And I’ve been working at a coffee shop in Boston for the past few years so I’m in good practice. I fixed drinks and also ran their online shop.”

  “Hmmpfh.” Spence disappears into the back room, emerging a minute later carrying a T-shirt and a key. “You remember how to open the shop?”

  I nod. “I do.”

  He hands over the shirt and key. “Good. I need you here to open tomorrow.”

  I need this job but it feels like failing all the same. A dull sense of dread settles over me, the feeling that I’ve just set something in motion. The feeling that I know what my life will look like not just ten days from now, but also ten years from now, and it’s nothing like what I’ve ever pictured for myself.

  “Thanks,” I say, but my shoulders drop. I don’t feel thankful at all.

  Chapter 5

  I step out the front door of Holy Grounds and onto the sidewalk, a grimace plastered to my face. Why does Swan’s Hollow have to be so nauseatingly cute today? Between my lingering hangover and the spring blooms sending my allergies into overdrive, the description is both figurative and literal.

  I breathe in and out through my mouth as I walk to the park to meet Abby, trying to calm my overstimulated senses. I really, really don’t want to puke on someone’s sidewalk this morning. It doesn’t help that the streets of downtown are crammed with cheerful storefronts, window displays a flurry of pastels in contrast to my sour mood. New bulbs push up through the damp soil in window boxes. Despite my best efforts not to breathe too deep, the air smells like warming asphalt and daffodils. Everything seems particularly green.

  Swan’s Hollow isn’t inherently bad, I know, it just feels like a shell I’ve outgrown. The town is pretty and quaint, which is what tourists always love about it, and I begrudgingly admit it has its charms. It’s the smallness I hate, the way no one ever seems to leave. We’re so close to Boston but everyone seems happy staying right where they are. It drives me nuts. This town has a memory older than I can imagine and it’ll never let me forget my worst moments—the way I was so scared when my parents separated, the way people had gossiped when my dad married Gayle, asking how he could move on so soon, even though it had been years since his divorce.

  In Swan’s Hollow I’m always the daughter of the weird photography professor who posed his nude models on the Town Hall steps during a snowstorm to protest something I can’t even remember. I’m the girl who got such bad stage fright during our fifth grade play that I puked in the potted philodendron in the school lobby before the show. I’m always me. And if anyone finds out the reason I’m home, I might as well stamp “sucker” on my forehead, too.

  When I arrive at the playground and find Abigail installed on one of the park benches, my shitty mood from landing the job hasn't faded. The only thing that makes me feel a fraction better is seeing Nico bounce between the slide and the swings, his chest heaving in excitement.

  Abigail turns and catches my eye when she hears me approach. “How did it go?”

  I make a face. I already regret how fast I caved in and slunk back to Holy Grounds. I should have at least grabbed a coffee to soften the blow, but I walked away empty-handed. “You’re looking at Swan’s Hollow’s finest coffee slinger.” I give a half-hearted little twirl of my finger, then plop onto the bench next to her.

  Abigail purses her lips and I bite my tongue. I may have left, but Abby never did. Swan’s Hollow is still her home, and when I make it seem like a stupid little town, it makes me seem like I’m judging her, too. I know she’s worked hard as hell to get where she is—parenting Nico on her own and working her way up to manage the bookstore. She’s the youngest store manager they’ve ever had, and she deserves it.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I just hate the feeling of going backwards. Like, I had this whole life in Boston and now I’m back at square one.”

  “Nah.” Abigail cracks a grin. “You’re at least at square two and a half.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, you’ve got me and Nico.”

  “Both good things,” I agree, watching my godson play. He zooms in to grab a juice box from Abby before dashing back to the swing set, a real-life reminder that sometimes good things happen here, too. I watch him for a minute, and a pang of sadness slides an experimental claw under my skin. It’s not like I didn’t see Nico after I left town—every few weeks Abby, Nico, and I met up halfway between Swan’s Hollow and the city, at Rocco’s Diner. The little restaurant had a blue-plate special for five dollars—eggs Benedict, home fries, fruit, and coffee—and a playground out back where Nico could run. Plus, thanks to the wonders of the internet, Nico got to keep me up to speed with his obsessions on the regular—earthworms, race cars, the color blue.

  But today, in person, Nico seems suddenly older. Real life fleshes out all the things that FaceTime can’t fill in—the big brown eyes with lashes he got from his mama, a peal of laughter, a half-healed scrape on top of his left knee. I can’t, for the life of me, remember how he got so big. It feels like I’ve been gone a lifetime.

  Abigail hesitates, a sympathetic look on her face. “Have you heard from the Sugar Daddy since you’ve been back?”

  I frown. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

  “What? Is it not true?”

  The truth is more of a gray area. Matthew’s college degree and lawyer salary footed most of our rent and utilities—that was the only way we could afford the sleek two-bedroom in Beacon Hill that he’d wanted. My barista salary wouldn’t have made for the classiest of digs.

  “Just call him Matthew.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Fine. You’re not going back to Matthew, are you?”

  I picture the last time I saw him—his eyes angry and defensive as I hauled the last of my things down our staircase.

  “You’re bringing the goddamn fig tree with you?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” I shouted. I clutched the potted tree to my chest. “Precious is mine.” I know it’s stupid to have named a plant, but hey, that tree and I have a relationship. For almost four years I’ve been trying to keep it alive, and for almost four years Precious has been plotting ways to die.

  The tree’s tucked into a corner of the guesthouse now, its lower leaves curled brown against the trunk. Evidence of yet another thing I haven’t nurtured enough, apparently.

  “No, I’m not going back to Matthew. How could I?” I shake my head firmly. “No.”

  “Good.” Abby narrows her eyes in thought. “You know, if you really want to go back to Boston, you need a game plan.”

  “I mean, yeah. I have enough money for a deposit for an apartment, but I need to save for first month’s and last month’s rent.” As I say it out loud, the reality sinks in: I don’t know if I can afford my own place on a barista salary. The alternative—getting a roommate—doesn’t seem so shiny either, not after having lived with someone who so massively let me down. “Maybe I shouldn’t be a barista anymore, anyway. This needs to be a temporary measure.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know.” I shouldn’t have gone to school for writing, it should have been accounting or medicine. Something practical, something where I would have an actual career by now. Why couldn’t I have been built that way?

  “Why don’t you join one of those companies where you can sell makeup, or whatever?”

  I laugh. “Okay, first, look at me.” I gesture to my cutoff jean shorts and tank top. My hair is only clean because Abby made me shower last night, but it’s back in my standard topknot.

  “Hmm.”

  “No one wants to buy makeup from me,” I assure her. “And second, those things are pyramid schemes. If I’m going to do anything, I’d want to have my own product. Be the person at the top who makes all the money.”

  I spent the last year running the online shop for my Boston café, selling small packs of coffee beans along with mugs and T-shirts with the store’s logo. I know how much money you can make at the top. I just don’t have
an actual product of my own.

  “Can you sell a book?” Abigail asks, and I think of my stalled novel. I’ve been working on this thing for the last two years—a historical novel about a geisha in Japan, set in the 1800s. I’d been so happy researching away in the Boston Public Library, trying to get all the details right, but maybe it was all a distraction from the fact that it sucked. I’d sent the thing off to dozens of agents, but after the fifteenth rejection I had to admit maybe it was me. The final straw was the one agent who actually bothered to write me more than a form letter. She called the story “meticulously researched but lacking in originality.” Which, great.

  “Go back and write what you know,” the agent scrawled in the margins. Except isn’t the whole point of fiction to make something up?

  Now with Abby staring at me so eagerly, I force my face into a smile. If I can go back and edit my book for the fifth round, maybe there’s a chance. But at this point it’s just another thing I’ve run away from.

  “I’d love to sell a book.” That, at least, is true, but I feel like a fraud even calling myself a writer. “The thing is, there’s no guaranteed payout.” I avoid mentioning how I haven’t written in weeks, how writing seems like scraping blood from a stone right now. Every syllable holds too much risk.

  “You could be a hooker,” she suggests cheerfully.

  I swat her on the arm. “I’d be happy to work for myself but not quite like that. I need to do something in between selling makeup and selling my body.”

  The last time I’d worn makeup and been willing to get naked had been the night of the party. It makes me think, with a twist in my stomach, of the lube I’d picked out for Matthew that night, the way everything I’d hoped for that night—for my life—had come crashing down. I spent the night of the party marooned on Mandy’s couch, unable to go back inside my own house while Matthew shuffled around in there, yet unable to leave without my things. Everything had changed in an instant—I’d left for the party as part of a couple and fled the party single and alone. But still, under the memory of the things I’ve lost, an idea blooms.