True Places

by Sonja Yoerg

  Her mother sent her an evil look.

  Brynn shrugged. “I was going to suggest an invisible fence but thought that might be mean.”

  Iris was hanging on to one side of the doorframe with both hands, looking totally confused. Brynn did feel sorry for her, just a little. It was impossible not to. For one thing, she was tiny and emaciated. She was less than five feet tall and probably didn’t weigh seventy pounds. And clueless didn’t begin to cover it. But Iris didn’t seem stupid, so she’d catch on soon enough. Her mom was the stupid one, acting like she was gunning for an A in Foster Parenting. It wasn’t like Iris was difficult. She wasn’t drug addicted. She didn’t smoke or even swear. She hadn’t had the crap beaten out of her, at least not that anyone had mentioned, and even though she was covered in scars, there was a good chance they were from living a little too close to nature. No, Iris wasn’t damaged goods, which made her mother’s hovering and intense concern really annoying. Iris was just another project for Supermom, to take her mind off the fact that she didn’t have a life.

  Reid was chewing a bagel and reading the newspaper their dad had left on the counter before he’d gone to work. Her mother faced away, at the stove, cooking eggs for Iris, who was still standing there in her blanket.

  Brynn checked the time on her phone, slid off the stool, and put her bowl in the dishwasher. “I’ll be ready in twenty, Mom. Oh, and you might want to wash that blanket. It’s got slugs on it.”

  In her room, Brynn changed into the clothes she’d selected the night before and put on her makeup at her desk, where the lighting was better than in the bathroom. Her phone vibrated.

  SAM (selfie of him grinning via Snapchat): Hey, getting dressed? Flash me?

  Sam was a junior on the swim team. All her friends had been shipping Sam and her for weeks. She liked him okay and she had to agree they would look good together. But he needed playing.

  BRYNN (photo of her feet in sock monkey slippers): Can you handle it?

  She applied the first coat of mascara. God, boys were slow. Finally her phone buzzed.

  SAM (selfie of him winking): Monkey see monkey do

  Points for humor. She applied a blush, another coat of mascara, and lip gloss in Jammy. Her phone vibrated again. She smiled. Couldn’t stay away, huh?

  LISA: Trevor invited us to the party at the club. Alibi time?

  BRYNN (smiley face with shades): Think Sam will be there?

  LISA: Yup. Asking for a friend?

  BRYNN: Yeah, a hot one. Later, bb.

  Thursday rolled around again, and Brynn met her friends at the lacrosse game because nothing else was going on. The game was a total bust. The opposing team was crushing them and it was too sad, not that Brynn and her friends were actually watching the action. Also, Sam and the other boys they’d thought would be there hadn’t shown up, so the girls walked to Lisa’s house because it was closest. Brynn texted her parents to let them know where she was going. It was lame—she could be anywhere—but easier in this case just to do it. Kendall pulled out a joint and they passed it around among the five of them as they walked. When they got to Lisa’s, her mom was on the phone and pretty much ignored them as they raided the fridge and ducked into Lisa’s room. They all agreed she had the best bedroom, not counting Brynn’s.

  Lisa threw pillows on the floor for them to sit on. “Brynn, when are you gonna have us over so we can meet her?”

  “By ‘her’ I assume you mean the Stray.” Brynn sighed. “The answer is never.”

  “Oh, come on,” they chorused.

  “No, really. The zoo is closed.” She pulled out her phone, anxious to change the subject. “Tinder roulette, anyone?”

  “Hell yeah.” Kendall put down her Vitaminwater and clicked open the app.

  Lisa volunteered to call time for the first round. “Ready, sistahs?” Brynn and the others poised their thumbs over their screens. “Okay, go.”

  The four girls swiped left across profiles, saying no to guy after guy. The rules were they had to swipe left until the timekeeper called time. The guy who was on the screen when they stopped was the one they had to swipe right for. They had to keep up a steady pace; no hovering over a hot guy hoping time would be called, making a right swipe mandatory.

  “Tick-tock,” Lisa said.

  “Come on. Say it.” Steph was the shyest of them all and hated this game. She felt guilty about swiping left past so many people who didn’t deserve it.

  “Bye-bye, hunky boy.” Kendall sniffed.

  “So many hunky boys . . .” Ophelia had a boyfriend, a senior named Andrew, but was all about Tinder. Andrew might or might not know how much time she spent on it. Brynn knew Ophelia had hooked up with at least two guys from it. Ophelia didn’t care. “Judge me,” she’d said. “Then fuck off.”

  “Stop!” Lisa held up her hand. “Like him. In fact, I dare you to super like him.”

  “Not doing it.” Kendall held up her phone, which showed a balding man with moobs drinking Coors in a bubble bath.

  They all laughed.

  Brynn glared at Kendall. “You have to. Rules.” She turned to Lisa. “I accept your dare with pleasure.” She let them see Robby, a tall, athletic guy in a wrinkled white button-down, the UVA stadium scoreboard in the background. “Holding. A. Pug.” She swiped up with dramatic flourish.

  “He’s gorgeous,” Ophelia said. “I’d do him.”

  “Of course you would.” Brynn smiled at her, to let her know it was a joke. Ophelia was a lot of talk, despite the hookups, and claimed to have been a virgin until her current boyfriend. They were all virgins, as far as Brynn knew. Blowing guys didn’t count. They all did that.

  Kendall called for another round of roulette. All the hits were lame. They hung out until Lisa’s mom broke it up around ten. Brynn texted her parents that she was getting a ride with Kendall’s dad. On the way home, her phone blinked with a notification from Tinder. Robby had liked her and sent her a message.

  ROBBY: Look at you, pretty girl.

  BRYNN: Your pug is adorbs.

  ROBBY: Jason gets all the super likes. I’m his agent.

  BRYNN: Lol

  ROBBY: What are you up to?

  BRYNN: In transit. Tell Jason I’ll catch him later.

  ROBBY: Don’t keep him waiting. He’s drooling.

  Brynn stashed her phone in her jacket pocket. Trevor’s party, such a coup only hours before, now seemed like a monumental waste of time. Campus parties were everything. She’d been to a couple before with her friends, but they had totally crashed them. They had been nobodies, high school nobodies—in other words, fresh meat. But going with someone like Robby, now that was different. That was goals AF.

  CHAPTER 17

  Reid sat with Iris at the counter while she scarfed down vast quantities of scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast. Whatever else she might have trouble with, eating was not on the list. She used her hands to eat almost everything, and when she did use a fork, she held it in her fist like a toddler. He was fascinated with what the Venn diagram of her knowledge and his might look like: what he knew and she didn’t, what they both knew, and what she knew and he did not. He guessed that, despite her ignorance of technology and modern stuff, Iris knew a lot about the world. It might not have been her choice, but she had pretty much renounced materialism, too, which was cool. Reid realized this didn’t mean Iris was made of starlight or even had deep thoughts, but he was curious about her. He wanted to ask her lots of questions but worried about spooking her.

  His mother was on her phone, texting at near-Brynn speed. Incoming calls made soft dinging sounds every few seconds. Only seven fifteen and the world of Moms on a Mission was wide awake. His mom sighed and put the phone on the counter.

  “Reid, remember Trevor’s party is tomorrow night.”

  “I don’t think I’m going.”

  “Not even for a little while?”

  Reid stared at his empty plate. This wasn’t about Trevor Gillings. This was about Trevor’s father, who ran the bank
where Reid’s father got funding for a lot of his deals.

  His mother kept at it. “He’s been your friend since fourth grade.”

  “Correction. He was my friend in fourth grade. He’s changed a lot, Mom. Not for the better.” Trevor was a classic lax bro: a partier and a slick guy with the girls.

  Reid could see his mother struggling, pulled in one direction by Reid’s father’s insistence that his real estate deals were family business, and in the other by her view that Reid should be free to choose his own friends and spend his time how he wanted, within reason. His mother agreed with Reid in principle—she admitted it—but in practice it was murkier, because she had to go up against Reid’s father over it. Sometimes, like now, Reid got the impression she wished he’d toe the line just because it made things easier for her. He’d done that occasionally. But now he realized that his mother was perfectly capable of getting her way with Reid’s dad when it mattered enough. Over Iris, for example. It frustrated and annoyed him, not because he didn’t want Iris around, but because his mother’s loyalty had always been a rock-solid given. He’d always assumed she was in his corner because she believed in him, cared about him enough to defend him. Now he wasn’t sure.

  She was looking out the window, at the weather maybe, or nothing.

  “Mom? Trevor isn’t going to care whether I show up.”

  She nodded. Reid waited for her to say he was right, he should be able to choose his own friends, but she kept staring out the window. She wasn’t backing him; she was bailing.

  Iris spoke over a mouthful of food. “Does he have other friends?”

  “Yes, lots.”

  “And they’re not your friends?”

  “No.”

  Iris thought this over. “How many people do you know?”

  “You mean about my age? A couple hundred or so at school. Plus kids from other schools.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s too many. How many friends do you need?”

  Reid glanced at his mom, who had turned from the window. Her eyes were almost as wide as Iris’s. Reid got the idea Iris didn’t usually talk this much.

  “If it’s the right friend, just one.”

  After school, Reid went to Alex’s. They ate Chinese takeout that Alex hoped wasn’t meant for dinner, then went outside to play horse. Reid didn’t like basketball as a team game, but horse was different, especially with Alex. He cared enough to try hard but not enough to remember who had won two minutes later.

  Reid dribbled the ball a couple of times before launching his shot. It caught the inside of the rim and fell through the net.

  Alex grabbed the rebound. “Lucky shit.”

  They hadn’t played horse much lately, and Reid thought maybe they’d been hanging out less overall since the Incident. That’s how they referred to Alex’s overdose on the rare occasion it came up. Mostly they kept the topic and everything related to it, like Alex’s therapy, at a distance, as if it had happened to someone else, someone they knew pretty well but didn’t care that much about. As Reid waited for Alex to take his shot, he realized that not talking about the Incident was bogus.

  Alex set up where Reid had shot from, took the shot, and missed. “Shit. H,” he said.

  Reid scooped up the ball and cradled it with his elbow. “So I want to ask you something.”

  “You want me to explain girls again?”

  Reid smiled. “Seriously. Is this a chill time to talk about death?”

  Alex stuck his hands in his pockets. “The Incident.”

  “Yeah, the Incident.” Reid bounced the ball to his friend. “What happened?”

  “You know what happened. I took a shitload of pills.” He side-armed the ball to Reid.

  Reid caught it, slid it to the ground, and trapped it under his foot. “Walk me through it.”

  Alex looked at him sideways, shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “I told my parents. I told the shrink. I said I was honestly glad I didn’t off myself. I think I told you that, too.”

  “You did. But walk me through it.”

  Alex blinked at him.

  “I want to know.”

  His friend nodded. “Okay. Give me the ball.” Reid tossed it to him, and Alex wandered the driveway, dribbling. “New Year’s Eve and I was bored out of my skull. You had the nerve to back out of our plans because of a cold.”

  “The flu.”

  “Okay, man-flu. I forgive you.” He spun on his heel, changing direction. “My parents were out, I was bored, so I had a cocktail. Rum and Mountain Dew.”

  “Classy.”

  “Right? So good I had another one. Still bored, so one more. Nothing but crap on TV, but I figured getting high would improve my attitude, so I smoked a joint. TV still sucked. Now it’s almost midnight and I’m rummaging in my parents’ bathroom and I find a stash of pills I’d never seen before.” He came to a halt in front of Reid. “Secret stash.” Before Reid could say anything, Alex walked away, bouncing the ball. “So I take a couple Xanax and wait for it to kick in. I’m just messing around, seeing what happens. And what happens is that I’m feeling different. One drink is different than none, two is different than one, three is even more different, especially if you add weed.” He stopped, took a shot. All net.

  “Your go,” he said, but kept the dribbling the ball. “That’s what no one gets, not that I’ve tried that hard to make my point.”

  “What? What doesn’t anyone get?”

  Alex held the ball in front like he was resting his hands on a beer gut. “Everyone talks about depression, about pain. It wasn’t about pain. I wasn’t in pain. I just wanted to feel different. Every time I took something I felt different. Inside each pill was a door and I wanted to keep opening them, see what was there. Sure, I lost my judgment—that was the dumb part, opening too many doors—but that wasn’t the goal, if we can talk about Mountain Dew cocktails in the same breath as goal setting.”

  Alex stared at Reid expectantly. Reid nodded, though he wasn’t sure he understood.

  Alex went on. “If you feel different enough, you don’t care what happens to you because it’s not really you anymore. That’s my point. But it’s not the same as wanting to die. Not that I know. I’m just guessing. My best guess is it’s not even close.”

  “I get it.”

  “Here’s the other thing, though. The really fucked-up thing.” He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The shrink put me on Zoloft. Guess what? It makes me feel different.” He laughed. “Joke’s on them.” He handed the ball to Reid. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “I get it.” Reid bounced the ball a few times as if deciding when to take his shot but actually thinking that Alex was exactly right. Reid had the sense that his self—who he was—wasn’t a fixed point somewhere inside of him. His self seemed more like a moving target, or like an amorphous blob that ought to be in a container with a label but wasn’t. Maybe that’s why he resented his father so much. His father acted like he knew who Reid ought to be and got pissed off when Reid couldn’t come up with an alternative. He didn’t have an alternative and wasn’t going to pretend he did. It was hard, trying to figure yourself out, because it meant you didn’t belong. All the kids he knew except for Alex stuffed themselves inside boxes to avoid the fear of not belonging.

  Reid looked his friend in the eye. “I get it. I really do.”

  Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “No one does different like you. Now shoot, you pussy.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Suzanne came down the stairs carrying a bundle of sheets long overdue for washing. She had underestimated how much time Iris would take from her day. Less than two weeks had passed since Iris had left the hospital, and Suzanne didn’t yet feel comfortable leaving her at home alone. Suzanne and Whit had attempted to impress upon her the importance of staying in contact, but sixteen years of free ranging was hard to overcome. When Iris first arrived, she slept a lot; the doctors had said she would do so until she fully recovered from the infection and gained s
ufficient weight. Suzanne had been able to accomplish most of her duties then, but now Iris had more energy. Yesterday, while Suzanne had been on the phone taking care of Booster business, Iris had climbed to the top of the fifty-foot maple in their neighbor’s backyard. At times Suzanne felt she’d taken on the responsibility of caring for a large, intelligent cat.

  Iris was perched at the kitchen counter with her feet on the seat, leafing through The Sibley Guide to Trees . Suzanne went through to the laundry room and stuffed the sheets in the washer. It occurred to her that Iris’s knowledge of trees was probably vast, even if she didn’t necessarily know their scientific names or geographical distribution. Suzanne hadn’t thought of asking Iris what she knew; she had been too busy teaching Iris about the world she lived in now. Suzanne filled the detergent dispenser, started the washer, and returned to the kitchen.

  “Do you like that book?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t know there were so many trees, different trees, in other places.”

  Suzanne nodded. “What about the trees you know already? Did you learn anything new?”

  “No. But I don’t know a lot of the words.”

  “I’ve got some other books. Hang on.”

  In a box in the attic she found her college botany textbooks. Why she had held on to them for all these years was anyone’s guess. Many of them were too technical, such as Introduction to Ecological Biochemistry , but Suzanne thought some others might spark Iris’s interest and perhaps give the two of them common ground.

  Suzanne carried the books down the narrow ladder, folded it into the ceiling, and brought the stack into the kitchen.

  “These were my books in college.” She spread them on the counter: Stern’s Introduction to Plant Biology , Herrick and Snow’s Iroquois Medical Botany , and Balick and Cox’s Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany .

  Iris scanned the titles. “What’s an Iroquois?”

  “A Native American.” The girl stared at her. “An Indian, the people who lived in America before the Europeans arrived.”