Nothing Else But You

by Elle Wright

  Our drama employee is F. No, not for fuck’s sake, although that would be apropos. F is our part-time high school employee. He comes in late every day, even though we all know when school’s out because we can hear the school bells all day long. Remember, small town. The high school is about eight blocks away.

  When he started working here, F was so attached to his phone, EJ made a rule that F has to give his phone to Mrs. B as soon as he clocks in. Now F sulks. Before, he honk-laughed every time he checked his phone, which was like at five-minute intervals. No one knows what was so funny, but F was indiscriminate about his honk-laughing. He did it on the floor in front of customers, or when he was doing inventory in the stockroom. EJ swears we’ve over-ordered or under-ordered because F is so incompetent. So, to answer what I know would be your question as to why EJ hasn’t sacked F, the kid is Mrs. B’s grandnephew.

  Apparently, Mrs. B’s sister was a fuck-up, and her three daughters are varying degrees of fuck-ups. F is the youngest son of the middle daughter, who, you guessed it, is the biggest fuck-up of all. Mrs. B has made it her mission in life to save F from fuck-up-ville. And in so doing has roped in EJ, S, and me in F’s salvation.

  Your turn.

  Ace, who wears a blue apron, not red

  Same day

  Mirabelle figured that dwelling on the school shooting and G’s aimlessness as a result thereof was a downer. She wanted to make him laugh and see the lighter side of life. God knew she spent countless hours working on that herself.

  So, after typing out the letter and printing it in the computer lab – she did not have a computer at home and she would never use the one at work for personal stuff – she returned to the computer and went through the Sagawick Valley High School’s yearbooks for G’s sophomore year.

  Unusual, and a bit daunting, there were eleven boys with G as their first name. And who knew if G was really a G. She wasn’t really Mirabelle, but she had become Mirabelle nine months ago when she’d fled home. It had taken a good chunk of her savings to buy a new driver’s license and social security card. Denny, the guy who’d sent her to the forger, was as stand-up as a mid-level street dealer could be, but in this case, he’d done her a solid. No, she didn’t do drugs, but she had lived in the same rat-hole boardinghouse in Portland as he did, and she’d cooked on her little camp stove, even though she wasn’t supposed to cook in her room. One night when she was making a stew, Denny had smelled the food, came a-knocking, and begged a meal. Their sit-down dinners were a two- to three-time-a-week occurrence. Denny was a real quid pro quo kind of guy, and sent her to a good forger who knew how to get her a valid social security number.

  Which was how she was able to move to and settle in Fiddler’s Rest, population 2,036, the county seat of a sparsely populated area, a little east of the middle of the great state of Oregon. After having spent hours hunched over a computer in one of Portland’s public libraries, she’d found Fiddler’s Rest, saw they had a community college, and that there were enough stores in the area that she knew she’d find work. It was cheap to live there, far from almost everything and everybody, yet only miles from a main highway that cut across the state. Perfect camouflage and an easy escape route.

  Taking it on faith that G was a G, she went through the yearbook assiduously. Eleven G guys, five of whom were on sports teams. Mirabelle bet that G had become proficient enough to play a sport for an Ivy League school because he’d done it for years. Of the five sport Gs, George, football, Geoffery, tennis – natch with that spelling – Grant, basketball, Glen, baseball and Giovanni, lacrosse, Mirabelle had guessed that Glen was her G.

  But she wasn’t certain.

  Glen Ryback was good-looking in a jock sort of way, but he didn’t exude Ivy League. He seemed more state school and chill. He didn’t have the intensity a student needed to crack the Ivy League safe. Geoffery Whitcomb was so white bread and Ivy League his photo screamed Skull and Bones, but he didn’t look like he had a sensitive bone in his body. Her G – yeah, she knew he wasn’t hers, but still – was a guy with a deep well of a soul or a supreme liar. Who was she to judge? She’d reinvented herself and fabricated a new identity. But… She hadn’t lied to him about anything except the initial of her first name. She was golden.

  Grant Ascomb had the looks and the Ivy League aura, but while basketball could get physical, it wasn’t brutal, which was how her G described his sport. Which left George Brody, the linebacker, and Giovanni Di Caro, the lacrosse player. George wasn’t much to look at, but he fit the bill in the sports department. She couldn’t tell if he was Ivy League material. Maybe, but around the eyes he didn’t seem to have the smarts. There was nothing scientific about her deductions. Christ, these were yearbook photos that were nearly five years old. But it was all she had.

  Giovanni Di Caro was too gorgeous to be serious enough to even apply for college, never mind gain entrance to an Ivy League school. The lower classes’ photos were in black and white. Only the seniors’ photos were in color, and yet Mirabelle knew Giovanni had bright blue eyes and jet-black hair. A dangerous combination in the you’re-too-handsome-to-be-real column, which was why she was sure he wasn’t her G. Anyone who looked that good and could drop panties for a living didn’t knuckle down and study like a demon. Sure, she was making broad generalizations, but she’d found, for the most part, they held water.

  She looked at the time in the top corner of the computer screen, cursed, then erased her search history and powered off the computer. She was going to be late for her writing class. They were diagramming sentences, which sounded horrid, but she loved that shit.

  One week later

  Gio hung off the side of his bed rereading M’s letter. The first three times, he’d laughed so hard the page was too blurry to read. Damn. This girl sure picked the right profession. She could write the hell out of a letter. Imagine what she could do with a book?

  He marveled at his ability to laugh, especially given the shitty mood he’d been in all day. Eight fuckin’ a.m. his father called. Gio answered only because he was worried something had happened to his mother, his sisters, Sofia and Aurora, or his nonna. But everyone was fine and going about their business – his father’s words, not his. Dad was going to be in Providence for a business luncheon and he wanted Gio to join him. Even if Gio had absolutely nothing to do, he would have said no. But grace came in the way of a quantitative concepts class he was taking during Wintersession. Picking up the class now lightened his course load a little during the spring semester, and he needed the time since practice and the games were huge time sucks. Plus, it got him out of the house. He loved his family, but his father…too much of a mind fuck dealing with the old man.

  When he’d said he couldn’t make it, he knew his father was pissed, but he’d never force his son to miss a class at the Ivy League school to which he’d paid quite a handsome endowment to ensure Gio’s acceptance.

  Christ. Why did the old man bother? While they had never discussed his father’s business, his dad knew Gio was one hundred percent clear on who they were, and what the family business was. His father also knew Gio wanted no part of it.

  Gio could remember the day, date, and time he had learned the Di Caro truth. On his eighth birthday, everyone had been forced to celebrate inside, the outdoor festivities cancelled because of rain. Their home was big enough to house two football teams, but that day, even by Gio’s father’s standards, the place was packed. Family from both sides were there in full force and effect.

  Gio’s mother, Francesca, had four brothers and three sisters, and Gio’s father had six sisters. Each and every one of them was married, and they’d brought their kids who, at the time, ranged in age from five months to fifteen years old. All the aunts and uncles who lived in the US were there, and Uncle Benno had flown in from Sicily.

  At four in the afternoon, Gio’s mother had asked him to fetch his father so they could sing Happy Birthday and cut the cake. No small feat to find his father in a house that size, but back then, Gi
o had thought of it as an adventure.

  When he’d heard his father’s voice from behind the heavy wooden double doors to his study, Gio called out, “Papa,” and when his father didn’t answer, Gio had used all his strength to push open one of the doors. His father’s Aunt Angie was standing over his dad’s desk, yelling at him, and he was sitting in his big chair behind the desk. Gio remembered thinking it was weird that Aunt Angie, an older woman, was standing and his father was sitting with his fingers steepled under his chin. Why weren’t they sitting on the sofa?

  Before Gio could make his presence known, Aunt Angie had screamed, “You take care of it. Do what you always do. Make him disappear.”

  His father shook his head. “It’s not warranted.”

  “Not warranted? Not warranted? Santa Maria madre di Dio that animal dishonored my granddaughter.” She pointed her finger at his father. “Dishonored your family.”

  “Zia Angelina. Did he rape her?”

  “No.”

  “Did he hurt her?”

  “No.”

  “Did he make promises he didn’t keep?”

  She pounded her fists on his father’s desk. “No. But he’s eighteen years old and he kissed her. A fourteen-year-old girl. He violated her.”

  His father sighed. “From what I understand, he kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her shoulder. That she thinks it was more than a kind gesture is a young teenage girl’s imagination, not a violation. On his life, he swore to my people this is what happened.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Zia Angelina. My people are most persuasive. I doubt they left him any other avenue than telling them the truth.”

  “So this is what it has come to. The great Don Alessandro lets his niece get molested.”

  His father stood to his full, considerable height. “Be careful, Zia. No one talks to me that way and lives to tell about it. Not even family.” He narrowed his bright blue eyes. “Especially not family.”

  “Alex? Oh, there you are, Gio.” At the sound of his wife’s voice, Gio’s father looked across the large room and saw Gio glued to the floor inside the doorway. His mother reached down and ruffled his hair. “I knew you would find him.” She turned her happy smile to the old aunt. “Zia, come. We’re ready to sing Happy Birthday to Gio.” Aunt Angie turned on her heel and walked out the door, breezing past Gio and his mother. “Huh.” His mother turned to his father. “Alex? What was that about?”

  His dad smiled like he hadn’t just threatened Aunt Angie with death. “Family complaints. You know everyone likes to corner me when they come over.”

  His mother crossed the room and reached out her hand to his father, who took it and laced his fingers with hers. “You’re too generous with your time,” she cooed at him.

  He came around the desk and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Hmmm. Not when it comes to you, bella.” His mother giggled and they walked out of the study as if the world was filled with angels, not evil men.

  G’s response to M’s second letter

  Ace. A blue apron, huh? Niiiice. Navy, sky blue, or electric blue? These things matter, you know. Not really. I’m yanking your chain.

  So, if we’re going to compare casts of characters, allow me to introduce you to the guys in my quad. There are four rooms with a shared common room, which is as much of a pigsty as you can imagine. In the front corner, by the glass panel beside the door, is a full-size plastic dummy with a blonde wig that came from a fancy department store. Don’t ask me how it got here, but believe me when I tell you I wasn’t the one who brought it in.

  Every weekend the dummy, named Vanessa – sharing her name has to be cool since she’s not a real person – gets a costume change. The person responsible for rearranging the wardrobe is chosen every Saturday morning when all eight of us draw straws. I’ve been lucky. I’ve had to dress Vanessa only once, and I was lazy. I put her in my ugliest sweats, an old t-shirt, and a baseball cap. My roomie, H, cursed me out and said I was a disgrace to the quad.

  A little insight into H: he’s brilliant. Like genius-level smart, but most of the time, he acts like his brain is fried. No, he doesn’t do drugs. He drinks beer occasionally, never the hard stuff. He’s way weird, and he does shit like taking two hours to dress Vanessa in clothes he scrounges from the girls in our dorm. He’ll drive three hours to his favorite Chinese restaurant, eat dinner, and turn around and drive back then go straight to class. I’ve never seen him study, but he gets As in everything. You know how some people have science brain, and others have math brain, while others have literature brain? H has all the brains wrapped in one. There isn’t a subject he finds difficult. He doesn’t need to be here. He could drop out and pull a Bill Gates, but I think he stays because it amuses him. One day, in the not-too-distant future, H is going to rule the world.

  D and N share the room next to ours. Whoever paired these guys knew what they were doing. These dudes are our glam squad. They spend no less than two hours a day on manscaping-related activities. They wear slacks and button-downs to class, and they dress for dinner in the CAFETERIA where mystery meat comes from. The girls are all over them 24/7, but they are picky. And they date. They don’t hook up. They bring flowers and take the girls out for dinner and a movie. And catch this – they don’t have sex on the first date. I mean I know where they were born and shit, but where did these guys come from? But they’re cool. They aren’t as sloppy as H and the other guys in the quad, and they seem to really live the respect women thing, so they’re all right.

  On the other side of the common room are O and T, and E and I. O and T are our resident slobs. They shower every day, but that’s where the line on being clean stops. I can’t remember the last time they did laundry. There are pizza boxes under their beds from when last semester started. They are the anti-D and N. They never cut their hair – man-buns, the both of them – they rarely shave, and T’s beard is scraggly and fugly, and they wear flip-flops all year ’round. We make them keep the door to their room closed so the stench doesn’t seep into the common room. If they get laid, it’s never here. No girl in her right mind would stay in that room for longer than two seconds.

  E and I are my buds. E is on my sport’s team and he’s a regular dude. Nothing extreme one way or the other. He’s smart, and pre-med. Studies like crazy. One of those true Ivy Leaguers, but without being a douche canoe. He has a GF, so he’s mellow most of the time. She’s good for him, and from what I can see, she’s good to him.

  I is a bit hyper, but fun. He’s wound a little tight. He worries all the time about his grades, and he drives himself crazy with the studying. If he’d study as much as he worries, he’d get all As. But he’s a great wingman when we go out. He can scope the best girls, and he has a good approach. He hooks up every now and then, mostly to take the edge off. He needs a steady, though. It would help him keep chill.

  That’s the quad. I’m not nearly as amusing as you. Clearly, I’m not going into writing as a career, but I made a commitment to these letters to try to sound like I have a brain.

  Your turn.

  G

  One week later

  Mirabelle

  Gross, G. I’m not a germaphobe, but your friend, the pre-med guy, has got to know that crud buildup is a Petri dish for all sorts of disease-causing bacteria. A suggestion: you guys all chip in and hire someone to come in and scrub that place top to bottom with antiseptic, especially O and T’s room, before the Health Department condemns your quad.

  So, catch this. R is preggers. Both EJ and B donated swimmers, so as of right now, no one knows whose kid it’s going to be. Not that it matters since they’re both the dads. B put his foot down and said there’s going to be no amnio, that they’ll do a DNA test after the kid makes its entrance into the world.

  Now everyone’s on baby watch. Even the “against” crowd. It’s better than any soap on TV. EJ and B wanted to keep the pregnancy under wraps until R cleared her first trimester, but this place, I swear, there are NO secrets
. Or if there are, those people keeping them must be S’s relatives.

  Speaking of, S had an argument with a customer. Well, his version of an argument. It went something like this:

  S: You need eighteen-inch PVC pipe.

  C: Gimme the sixteen-inch.

  S: Sixteen-inch won’t do the job. (He picks up two lengths of 18” pipe)

  C: Don’t want that. Gimme the sixteen-inch.

  S: Not gonna work with the sixteen-inch.

  C: Well, if it don’t, I’ll come back for the eighteen-inch.

  S: (Stuffs the 18” pipe back into the slot and pulls out two lengths of 16” pipe.) Suit yerself.

  I know you’re cracking up because this doesn’t sound particularly heated, but you had to see the expressions on these guys’ faces. Lots of moving eyebrows and eye narrowing, as if the next thing you’d see was them raising their fists. I think S was as pissed off he had to speak that much as he was at the customer’s obstinacy.

  This is my fun. It’s not cosmopolitan, and it sure as hell’s not glamorous, but I get a kick out of the little things. Without getting too HDR, there are so many big issues and shit that’s all kinds of wrong in the world that if you dwell on them, it crushes you. I’m not sticking my head in the sand, but I’ve chosen to focus on the stuff that makes me smile. Like Mrs. B’s blueberry compote. Damn, that stuff is good. A light schmear on toast in the morning and it’s like you’re ingesting sunshine.

  And so you don’t think I’m totally lame, I’m going out with a few people I met in my writing class. We’re going to hit one of the three bars in town. The one that has live music on Saturday nights. I have no idea who is playing and what kind of music it is, but I hear the place has a decent-size dance floor, and I love to dance. So even if the company sucks, I’ll have the dancing to fall back on.