Sweet Girl

by Rachel Hollis

  The shower, I think. The shower is the absolute best place to cry. It covers the sound and the tears, even from the person making them.

  I lurch down the hallway and into my room. Minutes later I am under the too-hot spray of the shower. When I finally shut the water off, it has run cold, and I have run out of the energy to sob anymore.

  I towel myself off and put on the coziest pair of pajamas I own. I have to turn the air conditioner on full blast to accommodate the flannel, but it is well worth it for the comfort I feel when I snuggle up on the couch with a blanket and a bowl of soup. I can’t find the motivation to turn the TV on. I just sip at the soup in the bowl and watch the shadows stretch across the patio through the sliding-glass window.

  I’m not sure how much time has passed when I hear scratches at the front door, but I don’t even have time to question what the sound is before the door flies open and Landon and Miko barrel down the hallway and into the living room.

  “Thank God we got here just in time!” Miko says, dropping her duffle bag on the floor and walking towards the couch to give me a once-over. “She was about to drown herself in three inches of home-style chicken noodle.”

  Miko removes the soup bowl I am still clutching in confusion and then plops down beside me.

  “Well,” Landon says cheerfully, “at least it isn’t clam chowder. We all know what cream-based soup does to the thighs.”

  I watch in disbelief as Landon drops two grocery bags on the coffee table in front of her and then starts to produce a cornucopia of junk food from their depths.

  “Can you throw me the Red Vines?” Miko asks.

  A package goes sailing over Landon’s shoulder and ends up bouncing off the wall behind us and falling onto the unoccupied couch cushion.

  “Close enough,” Miko says to the licorice package.

  She rips into it with her teeth and extracts a piece to masticate on. I finally find my voice.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I ask them.

  Landon pulls out a can of mixed nuts and puts it on the arm of the sofa next to me.

  “We got you some stuff too,” she says with a smile.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask a little louder this time.

  “It’s a Sandra Bullock marathon!” Landon announces with the energy of a drum major. “Just like we always talked about doing!”

  I shake my head, but neither of them pays attention to me.

  “I think we should start with Love Potion No. 9,” Landon says right before she opens a can of Pringles with her teeth.

  “Classic Bullock,” Miko agrees through a mouthful of Red Vines.

  This isn’t something that can be fixed by a slumber party or a girls’ weekend. This can’t be made better by a romantic comedy, and they can’t just act cheery and pretend it never happened.

  “I want to be alone,” I tell them vehemently.

  “Bullshit!” Landon yells, and all five feet three inches of her vibrate with anger.

  In this moment, I actually believe that if she wanted to, she could kick my ass. Miko turns towards me with her eyes wide in shock. We rarely hear Landon curse, and we’ve certainly never heard her scream one.

  “You do not want to be alone! You’ve been alone long enough.” She glares at me. “I know you don’t want us here, and you don’t want to hear what I’m going to say, but that’s too damn bad for you, because you’re going to listen anyway.”

  I turn away from her and look out the window again, because I don’t want to see her face when this conservative southern Republican tells me what she thinks of me now.

  “Max, you, me, and Miko—we’re best friends.” Her voice softens. “I know you think I’m cheesy or immature when I say that, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

  She sits down on the coffee table facing me, but I still can’t look at her.

  “Do you imagine we’d think anything less of you because we understand now? I think you’re one of the strongest people I know, and having the courage to admit what happened—that makes you stronger than ever.”

  Miko’s hand finds mine, but I can’t protest through the tears I am trying to swallow.

  “Dude, we’re here because we love you, and there is no possible scenario where we’d let you ditch us to spend Fourth of July alone in an apartment like an agoraphobic,” Miko says.

  She picks up a pack of turkey jerky with her free hand and throws it in my lap.

  “Eat some protein; we’ve got about eight hours of quality programming coming your way,” she tells me.

  Landon walks over to our entertainment center and starts to dig through her DVD collection. I don’t say anything in response to either of them. I’ve had enough emotion in the past twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime. I am pretty sure if I say anything, I actually might start blubbering like a toddler and tell them how much I love them and how thankful I am that they’ve come back for me.

  “Now I want you to prepare yourself, Max,” Landon says, putting a DVD into the machine. “At the beginning of this Sandra has really bad eyebrows and frizzy hair, but she’ll get a makeover when the love potion kicks in, OK?”

  I roll my eyes and pop some jerky into my mouth in response. The opening credits begin to roll, and they both settle in with various snack foods to watch. A few minutes after the movie starts, Miko interrupts.

  “Max?” she says without taking her eyes off Tate Donovan.

  “Yeah?” I ask, nervous we are going to have another heart-to-heart.

  “I really liked that picture of you in those pink hot pants,” she says sotto voce.

  Landon guffaws while I roll my eyes and shake my head.

  “Assholes,” I grumble.

  But even as I say it, I am smiling.

  The next day I still feel kind of numb, but so much better than I did the day before. We stayed up late watching more Bullock movies than I’d even realized existed, and while I will never admit this to them, I actually loved The Proposal. Apparently, even I am not immune to Ryan Reynolds’s abs.

  I start to get ready for work, and I am eternally grateful that I am headed back to the normalcy of my job. It won’t do me any good to sit around thinking about everything that happened. I don’t want to face what my family thinks of me now. I don’t want to see the look in Taylor’s eyes now that he knows why I am such a wreck. I need to throw myself into my work and get past this as quickly as possible.

  I pull on jeans and a thin cotton T-shirt, which is what I usually wear, but I take the extra time to do my hair and apply whatever makeup won’t melt off around the ovens. I want to feel more pulled together on the outside than I am on the inside. A cheap ploy, perhaps, but I feel better just the same.

  Back in my room I grab my bag and reach into my closet for my shoes. At the last second I grab for the orange pair of Natives, the ones I bought for my first day. I haven’t worn them since then, and it is time to give them another try.

  On the way out the door my phone rings for the first time in two days. I am not surprised to look down and see my mom’s name on the screen. I debate for a moment whether or not to answer. I know I had promised Liam that I would talk to her, and I know eventually I am going to have to get it over with.

  “Just not yet,” I say to the empty hallway.

  I flip the switch to silence my phone and drop it in my backpack.

  I stand at a high table working out a large batch of the toffee pudding I served at the dinner party earlier in the week. Apparently it was such a hit that Avis wants it added to the menu. Making a large-batch recipe is surprisingly tricky. Sometimes all you need to do is increase the measurements exactly, but other times making something in large quantity subtly mutes the flavors that make it so special. A big part of my job so far has been to find the most efficient way to make a larger batch without diluting the quality of a given recipe.

  I am busy grating nutmeg when Harris walks by on his way to the stove. He smiles when he sees me.

  “Happy to s
ee that one is making its way on the menu; it’s excellent,” he says over the din of the stand-up mixer my ingredients are spinning around in.

  “I know,” I say, lowering the speed so I can hear him better. “It’s one of my favorites too.”

  “Joey is not going to believe how many new dishes you’ve added when she comes back in a couple of weeks. It’s a whole new menu she’ll have to learn to make.”

  I look up from the ingredients in my hand.

  “What?” I ask him.

  He clearly misunderstands the look of confusion on my face, because he tries to explain.

  “I know it seems silly to refuse to tell her what’s going on, but I don’t want her obsessing over the kitchen. She already refused to take more than eight weeks of maternity leave. She’ll be back soon enough to hear about all the things you did while you covered for her.”

  Wait . . . what?

  “All right, my dear, that berry compote isn’t going to make itself. I’ll see you later.” He waves at me with one of his meaty hands and heads off towards the back of the kitchen.

  I blink stupidly after him.

  What did he mean “when she comes back in a couple of weeks”? Since when is Joey coming back at all? I have to find Avis and ask her what is going on.

  I find her braiding together pieces of dough to create individual challah rolls. She has both an unlit cigarette and a wrapped lollipop stuck in her bun, the way a librarian might stash a pencil. Her foot taps absently to the banda music that marches out of the speakers in the back of the room.

  I walk up to her table but don’t wait for her to acknowledge me before I ask the question eating a hole in my stomach.

  “Joey is coming back?”

  She doesn’t look up from her dough.

  “She has”—she stops working her fingers long enough to calculate—“a few more weeks off, I think.”

  She says it as if she’s casually mentioning the weather or asking me to get her a drink. She says it as if it is the simplest of statements, as if it doesn’t utterly rip apart everything I’ve been planning for myself since starting this new job.

  “But . . . but,” I stutter, “you never mentioned that this was temporary.”

  She looks up at me, her mouth pursed to one side.

  “Did you cut your hair?” she asks unexpectedly.

  “What?” I shake my head. “No. It’s always been this short.”

  “Has it?” she asks absentmindedly, and then turns back to her dough. “A bit mannish if you ask me.”

  “Avis,” I demand, “please focus! You never mentioned that this job was temporary. I was under the impression that—”

  “I did so mention it. I called you Stork,” she tells the roll in her hands.

  “Because I’m tall,” I try to argue with the delusional woman in front of me.

  “No”—she shakes her head with a smile—“because storks help the moms get their babies.”

  I shake my head in a kind of mute disbelief and try to grasp for something, anything to say in response to possibly the most insane explanation I’ve heard from her yet. I start to protest, to argue, to scream, but really, what good will that do? Joey has been with her for years, and I’ve been here a couple of months. It isn’t like she’d choose me instead, and I wouldn’t ask her to. Also, because I work with payroll I know what the budget is for the kitchen staff, and they are already pushing it, salary-wise. My shoulders slump in defeat.

  Crap. What am I going to do now?

  Luckily Avis answers the question for me.

  “Can you get me a Fresca? I’m really thirsty.”

  “Sure,” I tell her before slowly walking away.

  Too many things have happened in the last several days, and I don’t know where I am going to go or what I am going to do now, but I do know one thing.

  I am going to light these effing stupid, cursed orange shoes on fire.

  As I walk to my car later that night, I finally allow myself to think about what I’ve learned today. Whether it is fair or not, in a couple of weeks I won’t have this job anymore. I also haven’t spent enough time here to warrant getting a job at this level anywhere else. I guess I could apply to be a stage in another restaurant, but that likely means going without any pay. It is one thing to juggle two jobs when I think I am killing myself to work alongside my idol, but working two jobs so I can start as a dishwasher in someone else’s kitchen is utterly depressing.

  And isn’t this always the way? Don’t I know better? Damn it, I know better! I wrote the freaking book on managing expectations, on not ever demanding too much out of life, because then you won’t be disappointed when it turns out to suck all over again.

  “Damn. I don’t know what those shoes did to piss you off so much, but I’m glad I’m not them.”

  I look up at Taylor, who has parked himself on the hood of my car yet again. I didn’t even realize I was glaring down at my feet until he mentioned it.

  Ugh, please, could I just not have to deal with more emotional baggage for at least a day? Just one freaking day is all I ask!

  I try my best to swallow my temper and everything else the last few days dredged up. Taylor has been incredible to me; he doesn’t deserve my bad moods. In fact, he is way too good to have to deal with me at all.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He stretches his legs out and stands up, looking concerned by something he heard in my voice.

  “I wanted to check on you, make sure you were OK after—”

  “I’m fine.” I cut him off.

  “OK, of course.” He holds both palms up in surrender. “Of course you are. I just missed you. I thought I’d see if you wanted to grab dinner or watch crappy TV or something.”

  Here he is once again, being this incredibly kind, wonderful man. Some twisted part of me wants to ignore everything else and let him be that for me. But how long will it be until my moodiness wears thin? How long until he grows tired of putting up with all of my crap? How long until I screw this up too?

  I feel tired down to my very core.

  “You shouldn’t miss me, Bennett; it’s a waste of energy.” I walk around him to put my bag in the car.

  He reaches out for my arm to stop me, and I pull it away like he might burn me. He looks at me in confusion.

  “Since when did you start calling me Bennett again?” he asks.

  “I don’t think I can do this with you,” I tell him quietly.

  I reach up to fiddle with my bracelets, as if they can give me the energy to stay upright against the weight of his stare.

  “What do you mean?” he asks just as quietly.

  I take a deep breath.

  “I can’t do this!” I slam my car door and try to hurry around to the other side. I need to get out of here.

  Taylor’s voice is like a whipcrack; it echoes off the walls of the parking garage and bounces back at me in the empty space.

  “What does the bracelet mean?”

  I turn to glare at him. “Screw you, Bennett,” I say vehemently.

  “What does fifteen percent mean, Max? You wear it around like a talisman, only I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s your own personal cross.” He points at my wrist. “If whatever that stands for means that I don’t get to see you anymore, then I at least deserve to know why!”

  I don’t remember moving forward, but suddenly I am in his face, spewing years’ worth of anger and pain at the person who deserves it the least.

  “You want to know what it means? Fine!” I scream. “Imagine being nineteen and scared out of your fucking mind. Imagine yourself as this naive little girl who, yeah, knew that bleeding probably wasn’t a good sign, but still thought maybe, maybe her baby would be OK. And then this doctor comes in who’s old enough to be your grandfather, and he can’t hide the disgust in his face when he sees you there alone and without a ring on your finger to go along with the baby in your belly. And then he tells you that you’re likely losing the baby.” I’m shaking n
ow, so furious at the memory. “Losing the baby, he said, as if I’d just misplaced him or something! Now imagine you’re stupid enough to ask the question, because you’re naive, remember? You ask, ‘What are the chances that my baby will still be OK?’ And he looks at you petulantly, like you’re a child, and tells you, ‘Maybe fifteen percent.’” Taylor takes a step back from the force of my anger, but I won’t be stopped. I step towards him again. “I lay there for hours, and even while I bled and hurt and cried for my mother, I held onto that number, because fifteen percent was still something, right?”

  He can’t answer before I cut him off.

  “Wrong. Fifteen percent is a lie! It’s something you tell a patient to keep her calm, when all the while you know she won’t still have a baby in her by morning.” I hold my wrist up defiantly. “It’s not my cross; it’s my reminder. There’s really only ever a fifteen percent chance of being happy, but I don’t even deserve that much.”

  “Sweetheart,” Taylor says, looking almost desperate now.

  He steps closer, as if he might reach out or try to take my hand, but I can’t stand any kind of affection right now. I’m not worth it. My thoughts stall and speed up, a flash flood of vitriol. Doesn’t he understand yet that I am not sweet? I am hateful and mean, and the sooner he figures that out, the better off he’ll be.

  I could make him understand. I know exactly what I could say to push him away completely. I know how to be hurtful; I’ve had years of practice.

  “You should go,” I tell him. “It’s inevitable anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, but his tone is too sweet, too cajoling.

  He is still trying to be kind.

  “You’re leaving. It’s inevitable,” I say, managing to fit hatefulness into every syllable. “That’s what the men in your family do, right? They run away?”

  “What the fuck, Max?” he demands savagely.

  I’ve pushed him too far now; he is the angriest I’ve ever seen him. One more line and it will be done.