carefully everywhere descending

by L. B. Bedford

  “A date, huh?” he asks, eyeing me. “Was it with West?”

  “What?” I squawk. “No, it was with another girl I’ll never see again. It was not with Scarlett West. Scarlett West is not interested in me.”

  “Hm,” he says. He pushes my feet aside to collapse on the sofa with a heartfelt sigh through his nose. His mouth is set in a miserable curve.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, scooting back.

  He focuses on his hands, resting limply on his knees. “I didn’t get either job I interviewed for.”

  “Oh, Jimmy,” I whisper, straightening so I’m upright, facing him with my legs folded under me. “I’m so sorry. You’ll get something soon. Something you really like.” I pause for an appropriate period of mourning before barging on. “Have you given any thought to the vet tech stuff I left? I think it would be so perfect for you! You’d be around the animals, but there wouldn’t be anything about sales.”

  “Audrey.”

  “You could get your associate degree from the community college and maybe find someone who would be interested in hiring you while you finish….”

  “Audrey.”

  “I mean, you could probably take a few core classes this summer and get a head start on completing—”

  “Audrey!” he shouts. “Shut. Up.”

  I feel like he slapped me. He hasn’t talked like that to me since I was in middle school. I stare at him with my mouth open and my eyes starting to water.

  “Can’t you get it through your head that not all of us want the same things as you?” he asks. He’s staring straight ahead, not looking at me, and his hands are shaking in his lap. “I don’t want you nagging me all the time when I. Don’t. Want. To. Go. Back. To. School.”

  He shoves himself to his feet and starts for his and Sam’s room before pulling himself up short. Instead, he storms outside. I realize the music that had been playing in the background from Sam’s room has been silent for some time. Embarrassed and hurt, I go to my room and quietly shut the door. This reminds me of when Jimmy used to be so angry all the time, yelling and running out, even when it was a school night.

  I don’t sleep well, my thoughts too agitated. I wake up too early for a Saturday and can’t fall back asleep. The sky is a coal gray that makes it seem earlier than it is. I try reading in bed for a bit, but can’t get my eyes to focus.

  I cave and get up to shower. I dress in a white blouse with a string collar that I tie in a droopy bow and my favorite khaki shorts.

  I check my phone and get a jolt of anticipation when I see an e-mail from “Dine-N-Dash,” which instantly collapses when I open it and see they’ve decided not to continue with me as a candidate for their restaurant.

  Why not? What did I do wrong? There had been a box under “Do you own a vehicle or have regular transportation?” and I explained my situation. Had it been that? Or was there something else, something inherently wrong with me that they could see through the words on the screen? That everyone else seems to see, and that makes them pull away?

  Heart constricted into a tight ball, I walk moodily to the kitchen and make myself some toast from the loaf Dad bought yesterday. I eat over the sink in the gloomy, sunlight-deprived kitchen. It’s tasteless. Then I force myself to turn on the overhead light and clear the table for my and Sam’s study session, though all I want to do is curl under the covers of my bed.

  “Sam?” I ask quietly through his door, knocking gently. I saw Jimmy and Dad’s cars are both in the driveway and I keep my voice low. “Come on, it’s homework time.”

  I hear faint sounds from inside the room, and then he jerks open the door and marches out, glowering. The effect is ruined a little by the mussed hair and overlarge hand-me-down shirt from Jimmy that sags off one of his shoulders.

  He storms to the table and throws himself back on the chair I pulled out for him, crossing his arms over his chest. I’m going to ignore his behavior and focus on teaching him something if it kills me.

  “Science to begin,” I say briskly, putting his textbook in front of him and taking my seat. “Come on, Sam. Ecosystems. You can have my leftover pizza once you’re done. Sound good? What is the difference between a population, community, and ecosystem?”

  It’s hard going, and it gets harder the more questions I ask and the more I try to explain the correct answers. He gets visibly agitated and starts rocking in his seat and kicking out against the underside of the table. I try to overlook it and barge on.

  “What is the role of a producer?” I ask. “And how does it compare to a secondary consumer?”

  He finally flips.

  “I don’t know!” he yells. He grabs his textbook out of my hands and throws it across the room. It lands spine-up, crushing the pages under it. “I don’t know!”

  He leaps out of his chair and runs into his and Jimmy’s room, slamming the door loud enough to wake the whole household.

  I find that I’m standing, trembling, and near tears. It’s all suddenly too much. I can’t bear to be inside anymore, crushed by the oppressive limits of the claustrophobic house. I stick my feet in my tennis shoes and sloppily tie them with shaking hands. I run out the kitchen door, down the driveway to the sidewalk, and then up the street, away away away….

  I slow to a jog after a while and don’t think, just focus on the pounding of the pavement under my feet. I cross over the poor line, cross past Vapiano’s, past the grocery store I got Sam’s medicine, past it all.

  I finally stop, a stitch in my side and a little scared how far I’ve come, into an area I’ve never been before. It looks derelict and threatening, especially with the lack of sun. A rattling sound down an alley like a bottle being kicked makes me jump. I turn back toward home, jogging so slowly it can barely be called jogging to ease the pain in my side.

  After a bit, an old, beat-up car slows next to me and a college-age boy leans out from the passenger window and calls out something I force myself not to pay attention to. There’s another in the backseat, pressed against the window, making faces and gestures I barely understand.

  They keep pace with me, and the boy in the passenger seat yells something else I can’t quite make out and don’t want to. I fumble my phone out of my pocket. I shakily scroll to Mitchell’s name in my short list of contacts and hit Call. I put the phone to my ear with a clammy, sweaty hand, and pretend not to notice the car next to me. My heart’s pounding from the run and fear, making my vision do strange things. The guys in the car laugh and speed away. The call goes to voice mail.

  I pocket my phone and keep jogging. Once I get past the grocery store, I slow to walk. I’m sweaty, with my shirt clinging to my neck and lower back. I wipe my forehead with my sweaty, prickly arm and keep trudging.

  The thunder starts when I’m almost at Vapiano’s.

  “Of course,” I intone, looking up at the rolling clouds. Light flashes inside the dark billows and after a few heartbeats a rumble of thunder follows. I pick the pace back up into a jog.

  I’m rounding the corner to the residential neighborhood when the rain starts. Within a block it’s almost torrential, and I realize as another boom of thunder sounds just where I am.

  A crack of lightning illuminates the professionally trimmed path I take up to her creamy yellow house with the light blue trim. I brush past the silver Audi as an answering roar of thunder seems to rattle its windows.

  I can barely see in front of me, and so it’s a relief when I duck under her porch out of the warm rain. Even the sound of the storm dampens the moment I take refuge under the roof.

  I’m soaked through, and I push back the hair clinging to my face and neck before I ring her doorbell.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THERE’S NO response for so long I’m sure she’s gone somewhere with Serhan or her brother or her parents, and the house is deserted. I’ve decided to just cower on the porch until the storm lessens enough to run home when the knob turns and my heart jerks in my chest.

  Scarlett is wearing black shorts and
a blue short-sleeve shirt blazoned with a shrugging Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly and BROKE? scrawled under him. Her feet are bare. This seems very intimate to me.

  She stares at me and doesn’t move for several moments, like she’s not sure what to do, or if I’m really there. I suddenly realize my white shirt is almost see-through, and quickly fold my arms up over my chest, so my fists are under my chin.

  “I’m sorry to stop by with no warning like this,” I say. “I was out jogging and got caught in the rain. I know it’s not far to my house, but… if it’s not too much trouble, could I stay here until it lightens up enough to go home?”

  She blinks and then jumps into motion. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. Come on in.”

  “I mean,” she says, closing the door behind me, “I showed up at your doorstep in the rain once, so I kind of owe you.”

  I really wish she hadn’t brought up that night and the unspoken memory of the almost-kiss.

  The house is immaculate and cavernous, and everything looks like the pictures I see when Mrs. Ederlee scrolls through home design magazines on her tablet. The entryway alone has a beautiful staircase that looks like it was painted yesterday and showcases a curling, stately railing. I try to stay as close to the front door as possible so I don’t drip everywhere.

  “Hang on,” Scarlett says. She disappears down the hallway.

  My shoes and socks are completely sodden. I bend down and untie my tennis shoes and pull them off. I peel my socks off as well, then open the front door and line the shoes up neatly to the house. I lay my socks out to dry under the roof of the porch as well.

  I go back inside and close the door. A gust of wind from the storm slams it with more force than I intended, and I wince.

  Scarlett comes running back, a couple folded towels haphazardly tucked under her arm, looking strangely panicked.

  “Oh,” she says, when she sees me, slowing. “I heard the door and thought you’d changed your mind and left.”

  “No, I was just taking off my socks and shoes,” I say, gesturing down self-consciously. “They were totally soaked.”

  She nods and looks at my bare feet. It feels just as intimate as me looking at hers, and I cross the big toe of my right foot over my left. I feel a rush of heat in my stomach. I also wish I’d let Mrs. Ederlee treat me to that pedicure when she offered.

  “I got you some towels,” she says, as if just remembering. She jerks her gaze away from my feet. She pulls from under her arm a fluffy green one and hands it to me, keeping her gaze on her own hand the whole time.

  “Thank you so much, for everything,” I say, patting down my hair, then my legs. I wrap the towel around my shoulders.

  She finally looks back at me. “You jog in regular clothes?”

  “I didn’t plan on it,” I say. A lump forms in my throat, remembering Sam, and Jimmy from last night, and my rejection from a steady summer job. “I just… I had a bad day.”

  A sob escapes me. I’m horrified, and bury my face in the rough edges of the towel. It smells like expensive soap and laundry softener. All of our towels smell a little mildewy, even when they’re fresh out of the dryer.

  I hear Scarlett shuffle uncomfortably. “I’m. What. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No.” I scrub my face and look up at her. “It was just… stuff. It felt like everything went wrong all at once.”

  Her face smooths from discomfort, and she nods in recognition. The shirt she’s wearing makes her shoulders look sturdy, her arms so tanned. “Yeah. I’ve been there.”

  For a moment we stand with only the sounds of the storm filling the space. I become aware of my surroundings, how gray the house is from the loss of natural light, and how silent. It’s funny how you can tell rooms are empty without seeing them.

  “Is your family here?” I ask, tugging up a corner of the towel to catch a few stray drops of water trickling down my forehead.

  “No,” she says, wheeling around to look behind her as if verifying. “My parents took Connor to a car trade show in Portano City. My dad and Connor are nuts about cars, and my mom is nuts about Connor. She wants to spend as much time with him as possible since he’s been away so long.”

  “You didn’t go?”

  She shrugs. “Cars aren’t really my thing. And they wanted some alone time with him.”

  “Oh? Judging by your ride, I would have thought you loved cars.”

  “Oh, I do, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t feel compelled to spend practically a full day wandering around an exhibit hall comparing horsepower and rear spoilers.”

  I burble a little laugh, and Scarlett perks up like a kid who’s been praised.

  “Listen,” she says, glancing out the window. “It doesn’t look like things are going to subside soon. If you’d like, we can watch a movie…?”

  “That sounds great,” I say, smiling.

  “This way.” She gestures me to follow her with the extra towel. We go left, into a separate living room where a top-of-the-line flat-screen TV is paused during what looks like a very suspenseful moment in a drama, a woman and a man shouting at each other by a car-strewn highway.

  She tosses the towel onto a chair by a small, packed bookshelf (lots of medical textbooks) and folds herself onto the sofa in front of the TV. I snag the extra cream-colored towel and drape it over the spot next to her—not too close, but not coldly far away—and sit down. I arrange the green towel around my shoulders like a shawl and settle back. Scarlett’s watching me with a half smile.

  “Two things,” she says in a pedagogic tone. “First, don’t ask me to defend my desire to watch this. It may have been last summer’s biggest blockbuster, and it may have enough CGI to keep a small country of computer effects artists employed, but it is absolutely indefensible as far as intellectual nutrition. I know this. Second, closely related to point one, please don’t ask to start from the beginning. I think if I had to rewatch the first twenty minutes, my remaining brain cells would stage a coup.”

  “We certainly don’t want that,” I say, chuckling. “Just catch me up. What’s happened?”

  “Um, stuff blew up? See point one. Seriously though: aliens came down to Earth millennia ago and implanted into the planet, directly under the White House, a device that could lead to the destruction of humanity.”

  “Why?”

  “So stuff can blow up! Our Secret Service members here”—she points to the screen—“are the only two who believe the aliens had something to do with it. The rest of the administration laughed them out of the Capitol. And left the president unprotected. Now they’re on a quest to save America despite its petty mockery of them. One alien came back already and tried to detonate the device. They chased it away aaaannnd”—she picks up the remote and hits Play—“off we go.”

  The movie is terrible, but Scarlett’s running commentary, pointing out gaping plot holes, badly disguised cuts to stunt doubles, stupid dialogue, and scenery-chewing, is all so immensely entertaining that I barely stop laughing for the next hour and a half. By the time the credits roll over a frantic guitar riff, my side aches and I’ve had tears in the corners of my eyes for ages. I wipe them away, trying to regain my breath, as Scarlett pushes Stop with finality.

  “Well,” she says after a moment, “was that an abomination against God, or just humanity?”

  I start laughing again. All my concerns have melted away as if they never existed. I feel lighter than I have in a long time.

  My phone rings, loud now that the soundtrack of music, explosions, and dialogue is gone. I jump. I have to grapple it out of my pocket, tangled in the now stiffly dried towel.

  It’s Mitchell. I’m startled before the memory of my morning run and the boys in the car crashes back into my head and sends me back into bleak reality. I accept the call.

  “Hello?” I ask, untangling myself to stand up. The green towel falls from my shoulders to the imprint I’ve left on its sister on the sofa.

  “Audrey? Are you okay? I saw I missed
a call from you earlier.”

  “I am, I’m sorry. Thank you for calling back.”

  “No problem. What’s wrong?” I can hear the slightly receding storm outside the window echoing distantly through the phone. I wonder if he’s standing out on the balcony to talk to me.

  “It’s nothing. I just… I went for a run earlier and ended up farther than I meant to.”

  He’s expectantly quiet on his end, the silence pushing me on to babble the rest out nervously. Safe in this house, it all feels so silly, like I overreacted.

  “I kind of wound up in a bad part of town, and on my way back, some guys in a car pulled up next to me and started following me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s fine! They drove off. I just called you because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “I…. You… you can’t…. They….” He sputters into silence, and I hear him take several deep breaths, like Can you believe I have to deal with this?

  “Audrey, I’m glad you called me,” he says, sounding pissed. “If that ever happens again, call the cops. I don’t care if you think they aren’t serious, call the f—flipping cops. You— Do you have mace?”

  “Um, no,” I say, tugging on the string on my shirt.

  “Okay. Have you taken any self-defense lessons?”

  “No.”

  “Take some self-defense lessons. I will lend you the money.”

  I feel a rush of warmth toward Mitchell that he says “lend” and not “give.”

  “Okay. I’ll sign up for some tonight.”

  “Good. Where are you now? Are you back home?”

  “Um, no, I’m at Scarlett’s.” I glance over my shoulder and startle to see Scarlett is on her feet, staring hard at me.

  There’s a weighted pause on the line. “Oooookaaaay. And is that a safe place?”

  “Of course!” I’m genuinely affronted.

  “All right.” He sighs and mutters something I think is “teenagers.” “Stay with her, then, and if you have to go through anymore bad parts of town to get home, you call me, okay? Before you leave. I will drive you back. You got it?”