How to Save a Life

by Sara Zarr

  “Where are they now?” I ask.

  “Hmm?”

  “If you’re so attached to your children, where are they now?”

  The flicking stops. Her mouth hardens. “One’s at kindergarten, and the other is with the nanny.” She rips open the packet and dumps it into her tea. “Obviously you’re missing my point.”

  I stand and let my purse accidentally knock over my cup. What’s left of my hot chocolate spreads out over the small table, and she can’t stop some of it from running over the edge and onto her lap. “Shit!” she says, grabbing for napkins.

  “I hope you don’t use that language in front of your children.”

  Outside it’s cold but sunny. It feels good, and I walk up and down the streets of the outside part of the mall, and I wonder: If you don’t grow up to be a wife or a mother, what are you? A person alone, always wanting to be one thing or the other or both? My mother was never a wife, and that’s what she wanted more than anything. She didn’t want to be a mother, and she wasn’t one. Where does that leave her? A husband makes you a wife, and a child makes you a mother. Robin, she has everything and is everything, because she had Mac and she has Jill and also her job. What if there isn’t anyone to make you something?

  A lot of times when I look at the world and everyone in it, I feel like they all know something I don’t. I’m not dumb; I can see how it works. But it’s like double Dutch jump rope. In grade school I would watch the ropes fly and see girl after girl jump in and either get it right or get tangled in the ropes and laugh. I’d stand there with my hands ready and my body going back and forth, trying to get the rhythm and the right moment, and Ms. Trimble, the PE teacher, would say, “Come on, Mandy, everyone’s waiting,” and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t figure out how to get in.

  That’s how life feels to me. Everyone is doing it; everyone knows how. To live and be who they are and find a place, find a moment. I’m still waiting.

  Jill

  “You need to stop obsessing about her.”

  Dylan and I are back at the pho place, only two weeks since the day I hid in his car.

  “Having actual concerns is not obsessing. She’s living in our house. Bearing the child my mom wants. My sister. It’s kind of a big deal.” A largish blob of rooster sauce shoots into my broth from the bottle I’ve been squeezing—too hard, apparently. My conversation with Mom last night still bothers me, so much, but I haven’t told Dylan about it. Maybe he’ll agree with her, say I’m too closed off to life, a coward. Which isn’t something I need to hear; it’s not like I know how to do anything about it.

  “It’s going to be okay. Your mom is rock.”

  “My mom is not rock, Dyl.” Fearless and indestructible aren’t the same thing. He should have seen her on the day of the anniversary. He should see the way she still looks at Dad’s chair. “There’s this guy at work—” As soon as that much comes out of my mouth, I freeze, unexpectedly shy about saying Ravi’s name.

  Dylan shovels noodles into his mouth with chopsticks and widens his eyes at me, nodding, as if to say, Go on….

  “Just this annoying loss control guy.”

  “Loss control?”

  “Theft prevention. Theft by employees or customers or whatever. Can I finish?”

  “Continue.”

  “So, he’s this annoying guy, this loss control dude from Corporate who, for some reason, is always hanging out at our store. He completely thinks he’s a superspy. I mean, he did catch this major thief, but he takes it all so seriously.” I’m talking into my bowl of broth, pushing bean sprouts and mint leaves around, and my face feels hot. “It’s lame.”

  I don’t know why I’m saying he’s annoying. Dylan’s not the jealous type, so there’s no need to make Ravi into a nonthreat by going on and on the way I am, no reason not to mention that Ravi went to our school, signed my yearbook sophomore year, and said he bet we’d meet again. It’s actually kind of a great story. Only I don’t want to tell it. It feels personal, so mine.

  Dylan steals one of my beef strips. “Anyone who takes anything seriously is ‘lame,’ according to you.”

  Mom’s words come back: Cynical. No courage. “He wears these stupid suits.”

  “Oh no. Not suits.”

  Dylan’s been arguing with me all day. This morning I merely suggested that he park on the other side of the school lot from where he usually does, because the sun had melted the ice over there, and he said, “No, thanks,” and parked in his favorite, icy spot. Then in English I made a point about Anne Brontë being a more interesting Brontë than Emily and why did high schoolers around the country always have to read Jane Eyre, anyway, when there were other Brontës? And Dylan said, in front of the class, that Jane Eyre is awesome and why shouldn’t everyone have to read it? As if he’s even read any Anne or Charlotte. Now he’s defending Ravi, a stranger.

  “Anyway. Yes, he’s an annoying suit-wearer, but he is good at what he does, and I thought I could hire him. As, like, a private investigator.”

  Dylan sets down his chopsticks and squints at me. “To investigate what?”

  “What do you think? Mandy.”

  He makes a church and steeple out of his hands and points the steeple at me. “And you hope to accomplish… what, exactly? Pissing off your mother and making Mandy feel like crap?”

  “They don’t have to know. If Mandy hasn’t done anything wrong, it won’t matter.”

  “But what if you do find something out, Jill? Something you feel like you have to tell your mom?” He waits. Patiently. Will wait forever while letting me stew in my own juices and think about the implications of my words and actions. I’d forgotten how good he is at that.

  “Every single other person in the world uses a lawyer or social worker or has a contract or something before they go giving away their babies…. Why won’t Mandy?”

  “Maybe not ‘every single other person’ does. You don’t know. All kinds of people make all kinds of decisions that aren’t by the book, and they have their reasons.”

  I set my chopsticks on the edge of my bowl. One rolls off, and onto the table, and then off the table and onto the floor. The lady reading the paper at the register frowns at us.

  “Your mom is smart, Jill,” Dylan continues. “Give her some credit.”

  “You don’t know her like I do. She totally rushed into this. She doesn’t know enough about Mandy. She…” I press back tears with my palms, seeing spots and sunbursts. Mom’s right: I’m scared. I’m scared something will go wrong. If I keep my eye on Mandy, maybe I can prevent that. Not everything has to be left to fate. “I’m the only one left to take care of her, Dylan. Me. I keep trying to think what my dad would do but I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  I feel Dylan’s fingertips on my elbow and uncover my eyes, blinking a few times.

  “I think it’s gonna work out,” he says.

  “You think.”

  “Yeah. I have a feeling.”

  “Gee, how can I argue with that? It should completely put my mind at ease.” I pull my elbows back and get out my wallet. “I owe you from last time.”

  “Promise me you won’t hire this work guy, or anyone, to investigate Mandy behind your mom’s back. If you’re that worried, talk to your mom and let her decide.”

  I slide the check toward me. “How much is it?”

  “Jill. Say okay. Say you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “Okay.” I put cash on the table. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

  As if he heard all my accusations about being a relentless suit-wearer, Ravi isn’t wearing one tonight. Instead, he’s got on dark-rinse jeans and a palest yellow T-shirt with a black cardigan. The yellow sets off his dark skin, and a thought floats through my mind before I can stop it: I bet his neck smells like a cinnamon graham cracker, the kind my third-grade teacher used to pass out at recess.

  It’s the strangest thing, the way my senses play strange tricks when I’m around him. I think of baked goods, I think of childhood. I
feel like I’m seeing the world—or glimpses of it—through the eyes of the smiling sophomore Jill, the courageous Jill, the excited-about-life-and-possibility Jill. But because I’m not her, because I’m me and because the idea of being excited about life is, let’s face it, a little bit scary in light of what life has given me in the recent past, I greet him with “How come you’re always here?” instead of Hi, how are you? “There are five other stores in our region, you know.”

  He spins a rack of greeting cards, picking out one and opening it. “Mm-hmm.”

  A customer—one of our regulars, a middle-aged lady with giant glasses—comes up to the register with a paperback by this author who’s got a new book out every other month, and she’s always the first to buy a copy. If we don’t have the book out on the release date, she harasses us. “You know he doesn’t write these himself,” I say, scanning the book and reaching under the counter for a bag.

  “What?”

  I tap the author’s name on the front cover. “He doesn’t write these.”

  She takes the book, turning it over. The entire back cover is a picture of the author, resting his chin on his hand and attempting to smile devilishly. “Of course he does.”

  She’s in love with him. I shouldn’t shatter her this way, but I can’t help myself. “He outlines them. He has his staff fill in the details.” I’ve been dying to tell her this ever since I found out from one of the publisher’s sales reps.

  She runs her credit card through the machine, her kitty-cat charm bracelet jingling against the PIN pad. “How do you know?”

  Ravi is nearby, still looking at cards. “I read it in the New York Times.” I say. “It’s not a secret.” I’ve always wanted to say “I read it in the New York Times” to someone, about something. It sounds good, whether or not it’s true.

  “Did you, now?” She gives my brow ring and blue-streaked hair a meaningful look.

  I slip the book into the bag, throw in a bookmark, smile. “Have a nice night.”

  Ravi sets a card on the counter. It’s a birthday card with a drawing of a cute goldfish swimming toward a cake. I run it through and add the employee discount code. “We’re not supposed to shop on the clock,” I remind him.

  “I’m not on the clock.”

  “Bag?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He pays, then takes a pen from my pen jar to write in the card.

  “Can you move down the counter? I don’t want customers to think there’s a line.”

  “The store is empty.” Ravi looks at me and raises one eyebrow. One. The other goes down. At the same time one corner of his mouth goes up. It’s perfect, the kind of thing you practice in the mirror because you’ve seen someone else do it and it’s so cool you’re dying to be able to do it yourself. I have to exert all my will to keep from smiling. Because smiling would be… bad?

  “Whose birthday is it?” I try to see what he’s writing, without being too obvious about it. I can only make out the words fun week.

  “A friend’s.” He slides the card closer to him; I look away.

  Annalee walks up from the back of the store. Ravi, hearing the unmistakable sound of her long skirt swishing, turns. They smile at each other. “Ready?” Annalee asks.

  “Yep!”

  To me, Annalee says, “I’m taking my dinner break early. We’ll just be down at McGrath’s. Ron is here, and Polly’s running the café.” She comes around behind the counter to get her coat. “Call if anything comes up.”

  “Maybe you should call me if anything ‘comes up,’ ” I mutter.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ravi slips the card into its envelope and writes Annalee with a flourish. When he puts the pen back in the cup, our eyes meet. They’re going on a date. A birthday date. I try to raise one brow at him exactly like he did at me. I have no idea if it works, but he looks away first. “There’s a policy,” I say.

  Annalee hears me, nudging past to get her purse from under the register. “But you won’t tell. Want us to bring you back anything?”

  “I’m good,” I say, as cheerily as possible. “Happy birthday.”

  I’ll admit it: As I watch them leave, I feel a little jealous.

  I’m the one who popped Ravi in the jaw. I’m the one who needs his help with Mandy. I’m the one whose yearbook he signed, the smart and funny one he wished he’d had a chance to get to know. It’s hard not to think of him as mine. At least, more mine than Annalee’s.

  During closing, while Annalee counts out the drop safes, I make a call on my cell from the kids’ section. Ravi’s business card is in my apron pocket, where it’s been since the night he came to apologize. I’ve kept reaching in and running my finger along the edge, working out what to say. Since it’s late, I expect to get his voice mail, but he picks up on the second ring.

  “Ravi Desai.”

  “I thought you weren’t on the clock. And what happened to R.J.?”

  “Jill?”

  He says it fast. He recognized my voice.

  “Yeah. Um, sorry to bother you so late. I… It’s not exactly work-related.” I bend sideways so I can see down the aisle and to the front of the store. Annalee is printing out a register report, and the printer noise is loud. “Can we meet up sometime this week?”

  We talk over each other.

  Me: “I need your expertise….”

  Him: “If this is about…”

  About what?

  “What?”

  “I can’t really talk right now,” I say. “Do you think you could meet me at four tomorrow? At Dazbog? The one in Congress Park?”

  “Sure.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

  “See you then,” I say, and click off my phone before he can say anything else and before I realize that I should have said “thank you.”

  I pick up a copy of Pat the Bunny from the floor and rub the front before placing it back on a shelf. I spin the rack of Little Golden Books. I wipe what I hope is a smear of chocolate off the Frog and Toad mural. I finish my work and drive home, singing along to the radio.

  Even though what I want to see him about is serious, even though he just went on a date with Annalee, even though I’m with Dylan, even though I’m apparently a coward who’s scared of everything and most of all change, meeting Ravi for coffee feels like the first thing in eons that I’ve had to look forward to. It’s almost like I have a date with my old self.

  Mandy

  Jill and Robin get in a fight because of me.

  Robin met me at the north corner of the mall, inside, like she said she would. I saw her before she saw me, and I tried to look at her as if she were a stranger. Would I think she was a wife, or a mother? All I could see was Robin, who could be anything she wanted, being completely who she is.

  She saw me and came over, smiling and unbuttoning her blazer. “It’s warming up. Didn’t you get yourself anything?” she asked. “Where are your bags?”

  “I only got this.” I pulled a small bag out of my purse and showed her the pale turquoise scarf I’d bought, with silver threads running through it. “It was twelve dollars.”

  Robin held it to my face. “That really is your color. So gorgeous against your skin.”

  “It is? My mother always said I shouldn’t wear too much light blue.” I curled my lower lip into my mouth and bit it. Normally I don’t talk about my mother in front of Robin and Jill. It’s better not to mention my family at all. There were questions Robin asked me back in January, when we were e-mailing our plans. I answered them all, but there’s no reason to bring it up anymore.

  Robin was surprised, too. I could tell from how she drew the scarf through her hands a few times, watching me, until she said, “I think it matches your eyes perfectly,” as if my mother’s opinion didn’t exist. “Is that all you bought?”

  “You said not to go crazy.”

  “And you didn’t.” She put one arm around me and led me back toward the center of the mall and more stores. “Now I’m saying we
could go a little crazy. Mildly insane. I remember being that pregnant with Jill and feeling like a hippo, and so uncomfortable. There’s a maternity store here somewhere….”

  “It’s okay. I have what I need.”

  “I know. Sometimes you should have something you don’t need but that you want. It’ll be fun. Jill never lets me shop with her anymore.”

  I didn’t really want new clothes any more than I needed them. I’d rather keep wearing dresses until I go back to my old size. I’ll need clothes for my new life, and I thought maybe if I didn’t spend too much of her money now, she’d help me then. I don’t want to waste any of the watch money on clothes. But I wanted to make her happy. So we shopped and went out to a late lunch and came back to the house and took naps. After, Robin made me put on all the clothes again and walk around the house in different outfits.

  I admit: It was fun for me, too.

  It’s another thing, like crepes and reading on Saturdays, that’s so different from how things were. Robin never says anything like she hopes I appreciate everything she’s doing for me and I could show a little gratitude by doing something for her once in a while, in exchange. Kent would say that. Kent did say that, the two or three times he bought me clothes. When he made me walk around the house in outfits he bought, it wasn’t because he was happy to see me happy.

  Robin made popcorn for a late dinner, and we watched TV, and during one commercial I looked at her and smiled. I was about to say “thank you, thank you,” and I wanted to let her know how it feels to be in her house, and if I thought I could make this kind of life for my baby, I would keep it. But I didn’t want her to take it wrong, and I was trying to think of another way to say what I meant when Jill came home from work.

  She had to scoot Robin’s purse out of her way with her foot to get past the entryway. “What happened in here?” There were bags and tissue paper everywhere, and stray popcorn kernels.