Bittersweet

by Shewanda Pugh

  “Do you mind if I come? Just to make sure it goes okay? I’ll sleep over and tell dad I crashed in the guest room. No one will care. No one ever does.”

  Your mom will.

  The level look they exchanged said they’d shared the same thought.

  “If it’s that important to you,” Edy said. As far as she was concerned, the house was as much his as hers; it always had been.

  Edy snaked up the tree first, cursing at brittle branches and a cold that suddenly bit at her hands. Once up, she slid her window open and jumped in, turned around, and nearly gave up the ghost.

  Interesting how silhouettes work. There were some that sprung to mind right away, of people she’d never met, could never hope to have met, but still she knew them when she saw them backlit on sight. Beethoven was one familiar figure. Alfred Hitchcock was another. She always loved how he’d shift to the side at the start of every Hitchcock episode, and they’d scribble in his outline, like, there. There’s Hitchcock. She thought the same just then. Or rather, almost the same: There. There’s her mother.

  Hassan slammed right into Edy’s back.

  “What are you doing? How do you expect me to get in if you … oh crap.”

  Edy’s mother had gone to the trouble of pulling in an armchair. She sat in it to face the window, body cloaked in infinite shadows. For a second, Edy thought of Norman Bates’ mom seated in the basement.

  Edy needed to leave the Hitchcock alone.

  Hassan switched on the light and she shot him a look of thanks. Boogie men in the dark dissolved in the light, they used to say. This one stuck around.

  This one had Kleenex, too.

  First one leg, then the other, swung out from under her with a stiff wince that let Edy know her mom had been there a good long while.

  “Motherhood is the first task I have failed at so miserably,” Edy’s mom said. She laughed an ugly retch and chased with a hiccup. “Or is it that people are too scared to tell me all the other endeavors I ruin so thoroughly?”

  Red eyed, shoulders hunched, Edy’s mother propped her chin on the arm rest of her chair and knocked over a full glass of wine. The spill didn’t register a blink from her. When Hassan moved to get it, Edy stilled him.

  “You think I’m … ruined?” Edy said softly.

  Her mother squinted as if registering her for the first time. “Not ‘ruined.’” She shook her head a little. “Spoiled.” Her eyes roamed, searching the floor for the right words. “Sheltered.” They lapsed in to uncomfortable silence. “I bet for mom, you were just what she wished for. A dancer. No, no, a ballerina. Someone to drone on about Balanchine, Baryshnikov with as you starve in your tutus.”

  Edy had no idea her mother knew either choreographer.

  “After years of silence,” her mom continued, “Do you know what she said to me? ‘A dancer in the family. Finally.’”

  She swiped hard under the left eye and right, inhaled, and transformed into pristine condition. She scowled at Edy as if she were the filth scraped from the underside of a pre-World War desk.

  “She’s never made it as a dancer. Not because of lack of obsession, mind you. Growing up, I’d never seen your grandmother with a troupe or company, but she practiced for hours on end for some ghost of a dream without bounds. She didn’t care what kind of strain she placed on the family; she knew Dad would hold the house together. Injury eventually plagued her. At the first chance, she shoved me in one of those damned tutus. The second I got old enough, I shoved it right back. God help me, they look like clown costumes, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all Edy could manage, but her mouth hung open anyway. Her mother a dancer? And against her will at that?

  Her mother’s eyes slipped to slits and she stood. “You’re sorry? Have you seen that house? Their life?” She laughed a laugh that wasn’t quite real. “My mother spent a lifetime wrecking her body. Now she’s old, dizzy, and can’t even afford a marker for her grave.” Edy’s mother went unusually still at this. “A woman can never rob herself of independence.”

  At this, she strode to the door, froze, and turned to face them, gaze distant.

  “Are the two of you sexually active?” Edy’s mother said.

  Hassan blinked. “Uh … we, uh.”

  “Yes,” Edy said.

  Hassan vaulted her an incredulous look. She would have laughed had they not been facing a firing squad.

  But this was her mom. And as the Brits liked to say, “truth willed out” where she was concerned. Her mom had the harshest of candor, yeah, but she dealt in facts. She asked a question and dealt with the answer. How she dealt with that answer, well, was another issue.

  “You’ve used protection?” her mother pressed. “Every time?”

  Okay. What was all this ‘every time’ business? It rushed heat of the worst sort under Edy’s skin, threatening to drown her in it. There’d been the one time, their first time, and they’d been shaking like crazy. Sure, they’d flirted and kissed but the idea of sex still her flushed and embarrassed.

  “Do we need to discuss the perils of teen pregnancy?” Edy’s mother demanded.

  “No,” Hassan blurted. “We know them and we used protection.” His look of incredulity amplified.

  Edy had never pictured him as terrified of her mother. He was terrified just now.

  “You’ll be getting birth control,” her mother said. “While you, Hassan, are marching down the hall and into the guest room. Stay there if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I know what’s good for me,” he returned automatically.

  A smile curled her mother’s lips. “See there. Don’t you try and charm me after slipping in through the bedroom window. I know you’ve been doing it for years, but it has an altogether different ring now, doesn’t it? And Rani here has been worried about a kiss.” She laughed.

  Edy’s mother leaned against the doorframe, hair snagging on wood, spine curving in a dramatic arc. How much wine had she drunk?

  “She talked to you?” Hassan demanded. “About us kissing?”

  Edy’s mother stared as if he were dumb. “It’s what I said, isn’t it? Anyway, she wanted to go to your father. By that time the letter had come from the Patriots. I persuaded her that in life, as in politics, a rush to action often ends in folly.”

  “And she bought that?” Hassan blurted.

  Her gaze slashed to him. “People buy what I sell. End of story.”

  Edy’s mother straightened enough for a stretch. “Time’s up, Hassan. Let’s head for the guest room.”

  No. She couldn’t walk out like that, not after dousing Edy in so many conflicting emotions. Did her mother even realize the magnitude of what she had done for them by convincing Rani to keep quiet? Or what about the confusion it caused? Did she understand that? Nothing came from Edy’s mother without supreme forethought and a price attached. This gift—and she hesitated to call it that—came with festering horns attached.

  “Why did you do it?” Edy blurted. “Why did you convince Rani not to talk?” Unlike everyone else in her mother’s life, Edy had nothing to barter with—no valuables she couldn’t simply confiscate. In the plainest language possible, Rebecca Phelps had no need to keep her daughter’s secrets.

  A while passed before her mother sighed. “Listen to me, Edith. I never bet against my own horse. Not even when it’s losing.” She gave Edy a sympathetic once over. “Now go to bed. Goodnight.”

  Sixteen

  Day one back at school with everything the same and yet everything different. Winter held as a frostbitten reminder that weeks instead of months had passed since the start of holiday break and Edy, having prepped herself, counted on bold, gaping stares and whispers twice as loud, whispers twice as urgent. “What could they possibly say?” Hassan had asked her with that faux ease of his. It had a touch of hope in it if nothing else. What he’d meant to say was, “What in the world are they gonna say?” To which she had no earthly answer. There’d be speculating bold as a trumpet’s blare wit
h snippets of rumor barely flirting with truth. And the truth was wild enough, of course. But who could know it with her mom working overtime, making use of both her power and prestige? Hell, they were just kids. South End High would be South End High. Which meant they’d plug in what they didn’t know. Edy wouldn’t let a few ‘hellos’ at a party fool her.

  She got the inaugural greeting at school.

  “Total slut … all these boyfriends. Reggie, Hassan, Wyatt.”

  “Wyatt, really? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. How else do you explain him being in her house so late?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just … Wyatt?”

  “The shooter was aiming for Edy, you know.”

  “Really? Why?”

  On and on it went. Edy found that there were as many people to question the one hundred versions of what happened as there were those to spread the tales. When Hassan and the twins asked if she wanted them to handle the yapping mouths, which kind of sounded Mafioso given the circumstances, she politely declined. The new and hardened part of her welcomed a chance to face the onslaught of wagging mouths and prove herself tough enough to endure.

  A new faction broke free from the gossipers early on. At first they stared, watchful, studious to Edy’s every motion and conversation, as if hopeful of picking up on a tidbit of meaningfulness. After her entrance to the lunch room, the bolder ones began asking, first how she was, then what it was like to fight off Reggie. The admiration in their voices rang clear. She heard the wonder and the open morbidity. Once the question was asked, everyone fell to her like flies on honeyed pakhana.

  It took Hassan to see her and come work a bit of crowd control so she could grab a lunch she didn’t want, because she had none of Rani’s cooking. She took a seat at the “it” table, where they ventured with only one Reggie Knight question before Hassan warned them to shut the hell up.

  So that was her day.

  It wasn't until Edy came home from school and read the note from her dad that she realized some very strange territory was about to be embarked on.

  Edy,

  Forgive me for the hurried leave, but we wound up needing to depart earlier than expected. I know you'll be in capable hands next door, even if this is a difficult time. Don’t hesitate to talk to Rani if you need to. Of course, make sure to get your dinners there, too. Anytime you feel like the house is too much, given everything that’s happened, you can always stay next door. In fact, Ali and I would prefer if you did, but I know how independent teens can be. I didn’t want to rob you of the choice. Whatever you decide, Rani knows to set up the guestroom for you should you want it. Expect your mother to be in and out.

  Dad

  Edy stared at the paper forever, paper that danced under gusts of central heating currents. She stood in the hull of a darkened house, the sole inhabitant post-apocalypse. Had she been abandoned? It felt like it. Had she been left to fend for herself? Sort of. Going to Rani for everyday care and shelter weren’t within her realm of possibilities. That left Edy in a hollowed out home still sticky from crime tape.

  She could make do. She would have to.

  So, home alone. An empty house. The silver screen said she should dial fifty friends, set her house on fire, and do keg stands in a loose fitting bikini.

  Eh, she’d settle for OJ out the jug and a homework binge. Being an AP juggernaut came with responsibilities, after all, as a few of the teachers tut tutted over her while still giving out their assignments. No matter, she’d kill the work and raid the fridge for roast beef, old turkey, wilted lettuce, whatever. What Edy wouldn’t do was drag a bowl and spoon over to the Pradhans Charles Dickens-style and beg up on a little thin soup with a bit of crusty bread.

  The homework refused to be done. Edy told herself she was a capable girl, but still it wouldn’t listen. She moved on to thoughts of independent living and wondered at the feasibility of it. She had money of her own; well, a credit card or three. The bills would’ve been paid. She could grocery shop, she supposed, but that would tip her dad off that something was amiss at home. A call to her mother would alleviate the food shortage, if not the emptiness of the house. The second she thought of interrupting her mother’s campaign stumping to wave for a little attention, Edy’s fast souring stomach promptly dismissed it. How long would it take her mother to notice that her kid had no food to eat? Better still, would she ever?

  Following a dig through the fridge that actually did turn up wilted lettuce, Edy went on the hunt for takeout menus. She’d order Chinese, which would send her enough to hold her over for that night and the next, and at least that way she’d feel like she had a semblance of a plan.

  Just not a very good one.

  She sat at the kitchen table, head bowed over her history text when banging sounded at the door.

  Banging with the first knock? Talk about rude. Well, maybe the restaurant was short staffed and the deliverer had a lot of drop offs to make. Still, denting her door in was going to give him a whole new set of problems.

  Edy threw the door open to face Hassan.

  His chest was a mold of power rising and falling in jagged breaths. God, that shirt he wore snagged tight just where it should.

  “Edy, come on. Let’s grab dinner out tonight.”

  His eyes were darting and over bright, while a lone hand massaged his neck rough. Behind him, a gray Nissan pulled up before a slight Asian guy jumped out. He made it up the walkway while bumping his head and whistling a tune. Once close enough, Edy recognized it as the latest Beyoncé hit.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Hassan. “But I have dinner. Thanks.”

  A few minutes later, they sat at her kitchen table splitting her sweet and sour chicken.

  “It’s not that she doesn’t want you to come over,” he said. “Because she’d never say that.” He took way too much interest in stabbing his pork fried rice. “It’s just that the two of us weren’t getting along today. I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “Because I’ve never seen you disagree with your mom?” Edy said.

  His face pinched.

  “It’s okay, Hassan. Really. I know what’s happening. Stop trying to protect me. I love you for it, but it is what it is. I’ll adapt. We’ll adapt.”

  “Will we?” he said and looked rebuked the moment Edy’s head snapped up.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Of course.”

  Did she make too much of him looking away?

  Maybe.

  The days trekked on, with them reaching a silent agreement. Rani cooked and Hassan delivered meals—dinner mostly. Edy made due with cereal for breakfast or leftovers. In that way they reached an impasse. Her mom dropped in and out, mostly out, as her senate race became unexpectedly tighter. After all, Massachusetts was a Democrats’ state and no Republican had any business being competitive there. But it had happened before. So her mom campaigned and fundraised and had luncheon after luncheon endlessly, too many with Cam at her side. Meanwhile, no word had come from her father. Not even an email. Edy had no idea what country he was in or even if he had left their country yet. She told herself he was doing important work. She told herself that soon enough she’d be an adult, on her own, and it would always be like this, not knowing where her parents were. She was provided for, while children in the Congo starved. Everything else, all the contrived necessities as her mother once put it, were weaknesses a foe could exploit.

  Seventeen

  Edy’s eyes flew open and a gust of glacial wind knocked the air from her lungs so she expelled it in a single puff of smoke.

  Ice.

  It coated the floor. It was the floor. She looked up to find it her prison.

  On unsteady feet Edy eased up to a crouch, her hand low and pointed to the ground. A look straight up revealed the sort of mega florescent lights reserved for school.

  But no windows. Not anywhere.

  A tendril of concern unfurled within her. Was she in a freezer of some sort? That made absolutely no sense. They didn’t even own a deep
freezer at home; deep freezers were for people committed to cooking. Rani owned a deep freezer, but it was the sort that you lifted and stuck your head in. She kept legs of lamb and whole chickens locked in there, not people who wandered off.

  The Dysons had a walk-in freezer, but this wasn’t it. This stretched on both higher and longer than the one they kept at home.

  Plus, Edy couldn’t find a door.

  Fear clawed at her, but she shoved it back. She faced no immediate threat here. Yeah, the cold bit at her but she could think and reason. So, she’d think this thing through.

  Edy hugged herself and began to pace, slow, then with building momentum. A shot of the foot and a slip later had her head slamming hard on ice. Her skull shrieked with pain. The crying she heard wasn’t her own.

  “Wyatt?” she said eventually.

  Snow began to fall. Edy stared straight up at the iced roof and saw no opening, no natural explanation. Ice shavings. Faux snow. Christmas cheer, maybe.

  A bark of a cough pierced the air and clung in so much silence. Another followed like a wet splat and by the third, Edy found her feet.

  “Wyatt?” she choked out. Affirmation came in a cough. “Please! Wyatt, where are you? I can help you. I—I know I can.”

  Shivers racked her body while her heart thumped out a marathon. Somewhere in her icebox was a boy who’d been shot. Was that right? Was that remotely right? Her brain trudged through numbness.

  She needed to get to him. She needed to know how to get to him to … to end his suffering. No, not that. Was he beyond help? Was that her fault? Whatever led her, memory, intuition, straight logic, grew weaker with each moment she stood there.

  “Wyatt,” Edy said. “Tell me where you are.”

  Could he hear her? Was he still capable of responding? A rasp of wheezing drifted over.

  Edy knew that sound and feared it. She bit her lip and reeled back the tears. “Wyatt?”

  Heavy hands grabbed her from behind. She went wild, arms and legs pitching for her life.