The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  “What do you think they’ll say?”

  “I can’t even imagine.” I tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out.

  “You think they’ll be okay with it?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah,” Milo said softly. “I don’t either.” He paused. “You’re okay, though. Right?”

  “Yeah. I think I am.”

  “Well, that’s what counts then.”

  I could hear him grunting softly as if he was shifting his pillows behind him. “Are you sitting in that little window seat upstairs?” I asked suddenly.

  “Yeah.” He sounded surprised. “How’d you know that?”

  “Just a guess,” I said.

  Neither of us said anything for a moment. If he were here in front of me right now, I thought, I would take him over to Perry’s and watch him eat breakfast. Maybe he would order the special, those horrible-sounding creamed chipped grits or whatever they were. Or maybe he wouldn’t order anything. Maybe we would just sit at the table by the front window and look at each other over the steam of our coffee cups.

  “Listen, will you tell Zoe that I’m here?” I asked. “I haven’t called her yet and I don’t want her to…you know, worry.”

  “Sure,” Milo said.

  I could hear the sound of charged air in the phone between us. More than anything at that moment, I wished I could reach through it and touch his face. Even if he pulled away again.

  There was a long silence.

  “Listen, about the other night,” Milo said finally. “When I told you I…”

  “Can you not?” I interrupted. “Not now, I mean.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that with all the stuff going on here I really can’t take one more thing on my plate right now.”

  “Okay,” Milo said. “But…is anything wrong?”

  My eyes filled with tears. “No.”

  “All right. Well, will you at least let me know when you’re back in town and everything? I’d really like to…get together. Just for coffee or whatever. No big deal.”

  “I’ll call you,” I promised.

  chapter

  22

  I waited until Sunday to call home. After everything that had transpired the day before, the thought of any more excitement gave me a headache. I slept restlessly for most of the night, but when the first slivers of light peeked over the edge of the bedroom window, I slipped out of bed and headed outside. Poultney was still as a postcard. Not a car or a person in sight. Even the air was motionless, as if holding its breath until the sun finally made its decision to appear. I snapped open my phone, and held my breath as it rang.

  “Hey.” Zoe’s voice was thick with sleep.

  “Hi,” I said. “I just wanted to call and tell you myself that I’m going to stay in Vermont for…a little while. Maybe even a few weeks—I’m not sure yet. My sister and I are going through some stuff, and…”

  “Thanks for the update,” Zoe said. The hurt in her voice was palpable. “Milo filled me in yesterday.”

  “Zoe…” I bit my lip. “About what I said in the park the other day…”

  “Yeah, no, it’s cool. Actually, you know what? It’s fine.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “You have fun,” Zoe said. “Eat a lot of maple syrup. And you know, call me when you get back. If you feel like it.”

  I opened my eyes again as the dial tone sounded.

  Her words felt like a slap in the face.

  But maybe I deserved it.

  I walked a long time before calling home. And when I finally did, I sat down, as if the weight of what was coming might be too heavy to withstand. An empty field loomed before me, wide and green as an ocean, edged on one side by a small tangle of wild rose bushes. Behind them, the sun continued its slow ascent, washing the sky in gold.

  Mom answered, as I knew she would. Her voice was bright and crisp, devoid of sleep. She’d been up for hours. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hello, sweetheart. I was hoping that was you. Are you on the road yet?”

  “Not yet. Listen, can you ask Dad to get on the other line? I need to talk to both of you.”

  There was a pause. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” I tried to make my voice sound casual. “Everything’s fine.”

  “All right. Hold on.” There was the bustle of movement, Mom’s hushed, firm voice waking Dad, and then the jangling of the phone as Dad lifted it to his ear. “Okay, honey,” Mom said. She sounded slightly more far away. “We’re both on.”

  “Morning, Julia,” Dad said. “Everything okay? You need something?”

  I cleared my throat. “No. I mean, yeah, everything’s okay. But I need to tell you something. Both of you.”

  “All right.” Dad’s voice was louder now, with forced expectancy.

  “Well.” I cleared my throat again. “I, I’m going to stay here. In Vermont. For a little while longer.”

  “Oh.” Mom’s monosyllabic answer was barely a whimper, which I might have missed if I hadn’t been listening for it.

  “Okay,” Dad paused.

  “Sophie and I…we need to work some things out. Between us. And it might take some time.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. I fixed my gaze on several dandelion seeds as they danced along in the wind, scattering like a handful of rice. “Hello?” I said into the phone. “Are you there?”

  “Are you sure, Julia? Is this something you really want to do? Right now, I mean?” Mom was pleading. Before I could answer, Dad jumped in.

  “Your mom’s right. You and Sophie should definitely get together and discuss whatever things are bothering you, but now is not the time. I worked very hard to secure that internship for you at the courthouse, and there is no guarantee—none at all—that I will be able to get the same thing for you next summer.”

  “But…”

  “Actual courthouse experience is invaluable, Julia. Especially for a prelaw major. You will be able to include it on your resume. Before college. If you stay in Vermont, honey, that opportunity will be gone.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I could feel myself starting to deflate, the surety I had felt just moments before floating off into the wind along with the dandelion seeds.

  “You’ve worked so hard to get to this point, Julia.” Mom’s voice was unsteady. “You don’t want to mess things up now.”

  “How would it be messing things up?” I asked. “It’s not like I’m telling you I’m not going to go to college. It’s just an internship I’d be backing out of.”

  “It is not just an internship,” Dad said firmly. “It’s the establishment of real, viable contacts in a court of law. Where, if you work hard enough, you will be practicing your own cases someday.”

  “God, Dad. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what, honey?”

  I don’t know anything right now. Not like I thought I did. “I’m just trying to figure a lot of things out,” I said instead.

  “What things?” Dad asked. “About Sophie? Maggie?”

  “Yes.” I bit my lip, realizing something for the first time. “And me too, Dad. Stuff about me.”

  “What are you trying to figure out about yourself, Julia? College? Are you worried about going away?”

  “No,” I said. “Going away isn’t the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what’s best for me.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Mom said. “Just come home. We just don’t want to see you throw away any opportunities that might open future doors. You have to trust us on this one.”

  My phone beeped.

  “Can you hold on one second?” I asked. “Someone’s on the other line.” Before they had a chance to answer, I switched over.

  “Dude, it’s me,” Zoe said.

  “Hey.”

  “Have you talked to your parents yet?”

  “I’m talking to them right now. They’re on the other line.”


  Zoe made a snorting sound. “How’s it going?”

  “How do you think it’s going? I gotta go. They’re waiting.”

  “Wait! Wait!”

  “What?”

  “So listen, I was still kind of pissed before, when you called,” Zoe said. “About the argument we had and everything. I’ve been lying here, though, thinking about all of it.” I held my breath. “You know I love you more than anything, Jules, but I don’t want to see your face anywhere near Silver Springs for the rest of the summer.”

  I exhaled. “Gee, thanks.”

  “You need to stay there, Julia. You really do.”

  “Why?” I lowered my voice to a whisper, as if Mom and Dad might somehow be able to hear me through the other line. “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.” Zoe paused. “A gut feeling that tells me you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “I don’t know what the details are, or what’s going on between you guys, but I’m pretty sure your sister needs you right now, Jules. You. Not your parents. Not a therapist. Just you.” She took a deep breath. “After everything you told me about her and the whole deal with Milford…that’s just how I feel. Plus, it’s not gonna hurt anyone if you get a little time to yourself to figure some stuff out. You deserve it. Anyway, that’s my speech. That’s what I should’ve said the first time you called. You do what you want, obviously. I gotta go get a Dr Pepper. I’m dying of thirst.”

  “It’s seven in the morning, Zoe.”

  “Exactly. I’m usually on my second one by now.”

  “Thanks, Zoe,” I said.

  I held my breath as I clicked back over to Mom and Dad. “Hey,” I said. “You guys still there?”

  “We’re here,” Dad said.

  “So…I’m gonna stay.” I said the words carefully. “I’ve decided that’s what I want to do right now. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’ll keep in touch.”

  Dad cleared his throat roughly. “Have you heard anything we just talked about, Julia?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I heard you. I heard every word. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you later.” I let my hand drop slowly to my side, still holding the phone, but I did not hang up.

  “Julia?” Mom’s voice, tinny sounding and far away, came through the receiver. “Julia? Are you still there? Honey?”

  More dandelion seeds scuttled in front of me, their feathery shapes silhouetted against the morning light.

  “Julia!” Dad demanded. “Julia Anderson!”

  I reached down with my thumb and closed the phone.

  chapter

  23

  Sophie was outside, scraping paint off the side of the house, when I got back from making my phone calls. The muscles in her tattooed arms, bared beneath a sleeveless T-shirt and denim overalls, strained like smooth extension cords under her skin. Two braids, which hung down on either side of her face, had been tied back neatly with her red bandanna. She stopped when she saw me and put down her scraper. “You’re an early riser too, huh?”

  “Not really. I couldn’t sleep much.”

  She frowned. “You okay? You look like you just ate a plate of worms or something.”

  I laughed lightly. “Actually, I just got off the phone with Mom and Dad.”

  “Oh, yeah? You tell them you were staying?” Sophie picked up her scraper again, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Of course I did. Why else would I call them?”

  “What’d they say?”

  I leaned against the side of the house. “Oh, they were thrilled. They told me it was about time I did something like this and that I should stay as long as I could.”

  Sophie grinned. “That’s the kind of modern, progressive people they are.” She stopped for a minute, and let her hand fall down against her leg. “Seriously, though. You okay?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Good.” She pointed to another scraper sitting on top of a pile of rags. “That one’s for you. Watch me first.” She slid the little metal tool across a length of curling paint. Brown flakes dropped like a cascade of dirty snow against her boots, landing in a neat pile on the grass next to them. “Not so hard, right?”

  “I guess not.”

  She stepped back, making a space for me. “Go ahead. You try it.”

  I picked up the scraper and then slid it across a new strip of paint. Halfway through, it caught and stuck, bending the tool backward and spewing minuscule spatters of paint up toward my face. “Ugh!”

  “Don’t worry,” Sophie said, brushing at my cheeks with her fingers. “It just takes some practice. You’ll be okay.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a blue bandanna. “Tie this over your hair. Otherwise, you’ll get little flakes of paint in it. They’re impossible to get out.” She nodded at my khaki pants and T-shirt. “You got any crappier clothes than that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Upstairs,” she said. “Second drawer in my dresser is where I keep all my work clothes. Take whatever you need.”

  I plodded upstairs slowly, placing my phone down next to the baby picture of Goober, and got out the clothes. It was weird that I fit into Sophie’s overalls. For the first time I realized that I wasn’t smaller than her anymore. I walked into my room to change and saw a notebook on the dresser. It wasn’t just a regular notebook. It was a sketch notebook, with a charcoal hand and pen drawn on the front. The pages were heavy, like thin cardboard, and there were at least two hundred of them.

  “Sophie?” I came back outside again, holding the notebook up questioningly.

  Sophie grinned. “You like it?”

  “What’s it for?”

  “What do you mean, what’s it for? It’s for you, dork. So you can draw. I’m good company, but I’m not gonna be able to entertain you 24-7.” She shrugged. “Not that you need entertaining, but I thought you might want to doodle a little during some of your down time.”

  I put a hand on my hip, ready to tell her I didn’t draw or doodle, that she shouldn’t have gone out and bought me something just because she was glad that I was staying. But none of it came out. Instead, I just stood there looking at her, a vague gratefulness rising inside of me.

  “It’s not a pony, Julia.” Sophie shrugged. “It’s just a sketch pad. Use it if you feel like it, or leave it in your room. It’s not a deal breaker, okay?”

  “All right.” I put the pad down gently and picked up the scraper. “You want me to work right here next to you?”

  “Nope.” Sophie shook her head. “Other side.” She grunted as her scraper got caught behind a chunk of paint. “Let’s get started. I work on the outside of the house in the mornings, when it’s still cool out. In the afternoon, we’ll move inside. It’s still early. We can work for a few hours and then break for breakfast.”

  It didn’t take long to get the general hang of the scraping. But it was just about the most boring thing I’d ever done. And I wasn’t very good at it. It was a messy job, which, with my lack of expertise, I only made messier. In a matter of minutes, my hands and wrists were covered with so much flaked paint that I looked like a giraffe. So were my overalls, my sneakers, and my T-shirt. We were working at eye level now, scraping the sides of the house we could reach easily. It was going to be impossible, I thought, once we got to the lower—or upper—sides of the house. And how long would it take? Weeks? Months? The whole summer?

  Across the street, the lights had been turned on inside Perry’s. A few men idled again in front of Stewart’s, coffee cups in hand. The sky was full of light now, waiting for the day—and the rest of Poultney—to awake. I lowered my head and kept scraping.

  Sophie meandered over to my side of the building about ninety minutes later. She stood back a few feet behind me, crossed her arms, and surveyed my progress. “Not bad, Jules. You skipped a few spots here”—she reached over and pointed—“and here, but that
’s okay. You can get them later.” I bit my tongue. Signing up to help out around the house for a while was one thing. Getting criticized for how I did it was a whole other deal. “Why don’t you put your stuff down and go wash up,” she said. “We can go across the street for breakfast.”

  I was ravenous. But my arms were so sore I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to hold a fork properly. I held them under the stream of water, letting the liquid run through my sore fingers. A large blister, smooth and white as a mushroom cap, was beginning to form at the base of my middle one. I rummaged through Sophie’s medicine chest in her bathroom until I found a box of Band-Aids and stuck one over the blister.

  Sophie was waiting for me on the front porch. “There you are!” she said. “Hungry?”

  I nodded eagerly. “What about Goober?” I asked, falling into step next to her as she crossed the street. “It’s Sunday. She should be coming back today, right? From camping with Greg?”

  Sophie lifted her chin a little and then scratched under it. “They actually called last night while you were asleep. Goober begged me to let her stay with Greg for the rest of the week. They’re having a blast.” She shrugged. “What could I say? It’s the summer, right?” I nodded, trying not to let my disappointment show. At this rate, I’d never get a chance to see my niece.

  The warm, salty smell inside Perry’s made my stomach rumble. It was only nine o’clock, but the little restaurant was already full. Walt and Lloyd lifted their arms simultaneously as Sophie came into view. Jimmy stared out the window.

  “Working hard out there!” Walt said approvingly.

  “Looking good!” Lloyd echoed.

  Sophie clapped her hand over the top of my shoulder as she paused next to their table. “She’s gonna stay, boys! My baby sister’s gonna stay and help me fix up the house!”

  Walt raised his eyebrows. “Hey, that’s great!”

  “Sure,” Lloyd said. “I see how it is. You tell us to back off, but your sister comes to town and she gets free rein of the place.” He grinned and sucker punched Sophie lightly in the arm. “How long are you staying?” he asked, looking at me.