The Space Between Us

by Jessica Martinez

  Clearly he had no idea he sounded slightly Scottish, slightly Minnesotan, and slightly idiotic.

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I said, listening to my words, trying to hear what he heard. “I’ve never had an accent before.”

  “Trust me, you’ve had a Southern accent since the day you started talking.”

  “Yeah, thanks, I get it. I just mean I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’ve never been, you know, out of context.”

  “Welcome to out of context.”

  I stared out the window in silence, and felt the minutes roll by. The city lights were behind us now, leaving just the outline of bleached hills glowing under a heavy black sky. It was eerie. Or magical.

  “That’s the color snow is supposed to be,” Ezra said.

  I nodded. It was beautiful.

  We sank back into silence. It should have been awkward, sitting beside a stranger with nothing to say, but it wasn’t. Maybe because I didn’t care what he thought.

  After another few minutes, Ezra spoke again. “We’ve got a Chinook coming.”

  “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

  “Oh. I guess not. Warm wind from the mountains. Temps are probably up in Banff already. At least I hope they are. I froze at work today.”

  “You work outside?” That seemed impossible. Or if not impossible, then incredibly stupid.

  “I’m on ski patrol at Lake Louise. The slopes were practically empty today.”

  “Any theories why?”

  He either didn’t hear my sarcasm, or he ignored it. “Only diehards ski in this kind of cold, but they still have to have people out there clearing for avalanches and on patrol, eh?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Charly, but she was asleep. How was I supposed to make fun of my first “eh”? “And you didn’t get frostbite or hypothermia or anything?”

  “No. When it’s this cold I wear a lot of gear. Balaclava, goggles, the whole deal, you know?”

  Clearly, I didn’t know. “I hope they’re paying you well.”

  “It’s a volunteer thing.”

  “You spend all day outside in this and you don’t get a paycheck?”

  “I get a free season’s pass for Lake Louise. And the jacket.”

  I must’ve looked unimpressed because he shrugged and said, “It’s better than going to university.”

  That explained everything. He was a cold-weather Baldwin boy, going nowhere and not caring.

  Our next bout of silence lasted longer.

  “Have you ever skied?” he asked after a while.

  “No, that would have required me to have seen snow, right?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  Charly snored softly in the backseat.

  “She didn’t last long, did she?” Ezra asked.

  I paused. “She gets tired quickly these days.” There. If he knew she was pregnant, that made sense. And if he didn’t know, he now thought she was terminally ill, which was probably preferable.

  Outside, the hills swelled and grew steeper. I stared at my reflection, pale and angular in the glass, and wished I was different. Softer. Less harsh. Ezra was good-looking, even if he was completely devoid of ambition and intelligence. Other girls would’ve at least been friendly, but I couldn’t seem to manage even that. He probably thought I was a total brat.

  Except he didn’t know me. He didn’t know how drained I felt, or how horrible the last few months had been. I just didn’t have any pretending left in me. Small talk, making a good impression, being nice, being cute—it all took too much energy. It wasn’t like I was going to see him again anyway.

  “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

  His voice startled me. Of course I didn’t want to be here. “I’m just tired. Long day.”

  “You can go to sleep if you want,” he said.

  Tears pooled in my eyes and I felt my throat thicken. Why was he being so nice to me? I couldn’t say thank you. He’d hear the tears if I spoke, and think I was crazy. Instead I reclined my seat and closed my eyes.

  Like sleep was going to happen. I teetered on the edge of it instead. But everything—hurtling down an icy highway into the mountains of a foreign country, lying in a stranger’s car, closing my eyes—felt wrong.

  So I thought about camping with Will. It’d been the single most rebellious act of my life, telling Grandma I’d be spending the night at Savannah’s and then sneaking off to sleep under the stars with him. But worth the guilt. The memory was all warmth, lying in his sleeping bag with his arms around me, feeling completely safe.

  Chapter 10

  We met Bree’s apartment before we met Bree. It was a huge, high-ceilinged loft, with dark hardwood floors, white suede couches, and red candles and throw pillows.

  “So swanky,” Charly whispered, rubbing a red flower petal between her thumb and finger. It was a poppy. “I’m guessing this didn’t grow outside.”

  “Don’t touch that,” I said, my teeth still chattering from the ten seconds we’d spent sprinting from Ezra’s car to the stairwell. “That vase looks expensive.”

  “Hmm. Crystal or something?” she asked, letting go of the petal and tapping the vase.

  “I said, don’t touch it. As in, the opposite of what you’re doing right now.”

  “Pardon me,” Ezra said. I stepped out of his way and he rolled the first two suitcases across the main room to the far corner where a spiral staircase twisted upward.

  Pardon me? Charly mouthed to me, then, “You are pardoned, kind sir.”

  I gave her the shut up head shake. I was all for mocking the Canadians, but not to their faces and not while they were doing our heavy lifting.

  Ezra hoisted a suitcase and started up the stairs. “Bree said to take your stuff up to the loft.”

  “I thought this was a loft.” We were on top of an art gallery, in a building facing Banff Avenue. I looked up. There was, in fact, a loft. A waist-high wall hid most of the room from this angle, but I could see eggshell-blue walls and the rounded edge of a mirror, then Ezra’s head and shoulders.

  “A loft-let,” Charly said. “Cute.”

  “Adorable.”

  The apartment was warm, thank goodness, so I slipped off my coat while I glanced around, taking inventory. The room was a giant cube, with one brick wall to my left and an open kitchen to my right. The far wall had two doors: bedroom and bathroom?

  I wandered through the kitchen, eyeing the marble countertops, stifling the urge to examine the contents of the shiny stainless steel fridge. This was the kind of kitchen that would have capers and Camembert cheese and weird condiments in it. An array of copper-bottom pots hung from a suspended metal rectangle. I could almost hear Grandma’s voice: How many saucepans could one woman need?

  Svelte barstools along an island separated the kitchen from the living space. Charly was already sitting on the couch with her feet on a glass coffee table beside another vase of poppies.

  “I feel like I’m in a magazine,” she said.

  I walked to the other side of the room, past the accordion screen with a geisha girl fanning herself on it, past the massive flat-screen TV, over to the window. According to Ezra, Banff Avenue was the main drag, but the restaurants and gift shops looked closed for the night. “Wild West ghost town meets Siberia,” I whispered.

  Ezra was on his way up the stairs with the second bag. “Yeah, Richard has a decorator for all his places. I think this one actually was photographed for a magazine last—”

  “Wait, what?” I interrupted. “This is Richard’s apartment?”

  “Well, no. Yeah. I don’t know.”

  He disappeared into our room again. I waited for him to come back, my mind cartwheeling. Were we moving into Bree and her boyfriend’s little love nest? Grandma was going to freak.

  “He doesn’t actually live here,” Ezra said, coming back down the stairs. “He lives in Calgary, but he has a lot of real estate here in Banff, so he’s here on the weekends to ski and to see Bree, I guess.”

&n
bsp; A lot of real estate. People who had a lot of real estate had butlers and Bentleys and half-empty tubes of Aspercreme in their medicine cabinets. “How old is Richard?”

  “Mid-forties, I think.” He paused. “Yeah, he went to high school with my mom.”

  “That’s a twenty-year age difference!”

  “You might not want to point that out to Bree.”

  “She doesn’t realize her boyfriend is old enough to be her father?”

  “Yeah, but you know what she’s like.”

  “Actually, we don’t,” Charly said.

  I sent her a death glare, but she was too busy making the lights flicker with the remote control in her hand to catch it.

  “I’ve been imagining her as a skinny version of my first grade teacher, Ms. Paulson,” Charly continued, dropping the remote and picking up the coffee table book. “Not sure why.”

  Ezra squinted at Charly. “You don’t know her?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said before Charly could say something else stupid.

  He didn’t smirk, but it was in his eyes. They were dark, brimming with things he was too polite to say.

  “What about you. How do you know Bree?” I asked.

  “Bree and my brother used to be, you know . . . together.”

  “Oh.” I tried to construct a mental diagram of the relationships, but having no faces made it hard. Bree had dated Ezra’s brother, but was now with Richard, who went to school with Ezra’s mom?

  “It’s complicated,” he added.

  “Speaking of complicated, modern art hurts my head,” Charly said, yawning. She chucked the book onto the coffee table, then flopped over onto her side. “Amelia, I’ll give you a million bucks to pick me up and carry me to bed. A million more if you brush my teeth and put my retainer in for me.”

  Ezra looked from Charly to me. “I should go get the other two suitcases.” He left.

  “Have you considered saving the weirdness until people know you?” I asked, staring out the window. It was dead out there. Dead cold. Dead dark. Dead quiet.

  Ezra clearly thought we were freaks, but so what? Charly was a freak. And the two of us flying across the continent to move in with a complete stranger like we were part of the witness protection program or something—that was freakish.

  “He’s kind of cute,” Charly said. She was still sideways on the couch, face-planted in throw pillows. “You should go for him. He has that same serious, never-say-what-I’m-thinking thing as you. You guys would be perfect together. You could just sit around being broody together.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Oh, come on. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you followed him out to the car and—”

  “Shut up!”

  “Jeez. Cranky.”

  I wandered over to the tight spiral staircase and started up.

  “Dibs on the better bed,” she called after me.

  “Dibs on somebody else’s life.”

  The “loft-let” was the size of a closet. The furniture consisted of a double bed, a tall, skinny dresser pushed up next to it, and a card table masquerading as a desk in the corner. There was a tiny window, so it wasn’t quite the same as a prison cell. But close.

  Ezra had wedged the two suitcases in the space between the foot of the bed and the overlook, which was just tall enough to hide me from view unless I was standing right next to it.

  I dropped my backpack on the bed and leaned over the wall. “Hey,” I called down to Charly. “Good news. We’re sharing a bed.”

  Charly didn’t look up. She’d picked up another book of artwork and was busy thumbing through. “My bladder wants to sleep closest to the stairs.”

  I pulled off my sweater and fell backward onto the white duvet. At least the mattress was soft.

  “Are these okay here?”

  Ezra’s voice brought me to a sitting position. I hadn’t even heard him come in, but he was at the foot of the bed, piling the suitcases next to the other two.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Where else were they going to fit?

  “Well, I should be going, then.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He nodded, then stared at me for a second too long.

  “Good-bye,” I said, lifting my eyebrows.

  Ezra turned and went back downstairs. I listened to him say good night to Charly and leave before I let myself fall back into the bed.

  Alone. I’d been dying to be by myself all day, and now that Charly and I were sharing a room, not just a room but a bed, this was as close to it as I was going to get. I was just starting to float away when Charly’s voice from below startled me awake.

  “Why were you such a jerk to him?”

  “I wasn’t,” I called back. “And why do you care, anyway?”

  “It’s embarrassing when you do that.”

  “Embarrassing? I embarrass you?”

  Silence.

  “Because last time I checked, you were the one who was knocked up with a complete stranger’s baby.”

  Dead silence.

  Hands shaking, I pulled off my jeans and socks, wriggled out of my bra, and climbed into bed in just my shirt and underwear. My heart thumped against my rib cage and my throat ached. This air was too thin and too dry for my lungs to hold on to.

  I was supposed to call Grandma. She’d be worried if I didn’t let her know we’d gotten here safely, but I was too tired to get out of bed and I couldn’t be in the same room as Charly right now. Besides, I couldn’t just call from Bree’s home phone without asking her first. Grandma deserved to worry a little.

  And I deserved a good cry, but now that I was actually alone, the tears wouldn’t come. Instead I hugged my knees to my chest and felt the blood pulse through me. I closed my eyes and pictured the lights at Savannah’s party, muggy nights in the black walnut tree, Dad’s warm hand on my shoulder, Will’s deep-set blue eyes. The last noise I remembered was the refrigerator door opening and closing. Of course Charly would be helping herself to Bree’s food, uninvited.

  Then sleep pulled me down.

  • • •

  I woke up to the Wicked soundtrack and the smell of sizzling pork fat. It wasn’t the CD (that I’d heard a million times, thank you, Charly), but a live duet of What Is This Feeling? accompanied by pot clanging. Ah yes, the song about roommates hating each other. Appropriate.

  I opened my eyes and a beam of white sunlight drilled a hole into my eyeball. I groaned and rolled over. One tiny window, what were the chances?

  I pulled the duvet over my head, which blocked the light but only muffled their voices. Decision time. I could go downstairs, or fake sleep until Broadway musical hour was over. On the one hand, the singing was too loud to sleep through and could go on forever, but on the other hand, I had no place down there. Bonding with the lost aunt over bacon and show tunes—that was Charly’s scene.

  Except I was starving.

  I swung my legs out of bed and looked around me. My jeans were on the floor, so I grabbed them and put them on. The left side of the bed was still tucked in. Charly must have slept on the couch.

  The singing broke off below. “Pass me your plate, babe.”

  Babe? Bree’s voice was husky—not low, but just scratchy enough to be grating.

  I glanced at my reflection in the oval mirror over the dresser. Pale skin, colorless lips, dull brown hair, mascara wells under my eyes—this was going to be a great first impression. I looked like a junkie.

  “Can I have that syrup?” Charly sounded awfully chipper for someone who hated mornings, someone pissed off enough to sleep on the couch rather than share a bed with me.

  “This is the real deal,” Bree said. “Canadian maple syrup. One taste and you’ll never go back to Aunt Jemima.”

  I took the double-helix staircase slowly, looking up only when I got to the bottom. Both had their backs to me, Charly at the island stuffing her face and Bree at the stove, still nattering about syrup. She had white-blond hair cut pixie-short, and a black rose tattoo on the nap
e of her neck. From behind I could see she had one of those dainty cartoon frames: curvy hips, tiny waist, and mysteriously, no shoulders. I could probably bench-press her.

  Neither noticed me until I reached the bottom and Bree turned around, pancake on a spatula.

  “Amelia!” she squealed, and tossed the pancake onto Charly’s plate. She was instantly across the room and on me, squeezing the air out of me. “You’re beautiful!”

  “Thank you.” That was maybe arguable on a good day, and definitely not true as of one minute ago when I’d looked in the mirror. I returned the hug and waited for her to let go. She took her time. Awkward. It didn’t help that she was short enough for me to rest my chin on top of her head. Her hair product smelled like coconut.

  “No, really, you’re gorgeous!” she said, pulling back.

  Again, awkward. I tried to smile.

  “Your hair is so dark—nothing like your mom’s. I don’t really remember your dad, but you must look like him.”

  “That’s what people say.”

  She kept examining my face from close up, so my only option was staring right back. She had round eyes spaced just a little too far apart, a tiny diamond stud in her nose, and a silver lip ring. It’s hard enough not to stare at people’s piercings from a normal distance, but from six inches? Impossible. The nose stud was incredibly sparkly.

  She put her hands on her hips. “You’re too skinny. Do you eat?”

  What was that supposed to mean? She was the one who was the size of a twelve-year-old. “Of course I eat.”

  “Good, have some pancakes. And bacon.”

  I took the stool beside Charly. Bree shoveled a full piglet’s worth of bacon onto my plate. “Um. Sure.”

  “So Charly and I were just having a little Wicked sing-along.”

  “I heard.”

  “You’ve got some pipes, girl,” she said, dumping more pancakes onto Charly’s plate, then mine. “Do you sing too?”

  “No.” Whatever I was doing in choir, I was pretty sure it didn’t count as singing. Credit earned, transcript diversified, rejected anyway. “Charly got the singing genes.”

  “Me too. I sing in a band, actually. It’s punk. We mostly do covers of 80s music, but sometimes we do show tunes too. Wild mix, eh?”