Friendship Bread

by Darien Gee

  “The ladies of the Avalon Scrapbooking Society have a meeting next week and the theme is romance.”

  “Hence me.”

  “Hence you.” Edie glues a picture onto the page at an angle, thinking it looks more artistic. Or amateurish. She can’t decide, but it’s too late anyway.

  Richard points to the picture of the two of them in Benin, West Africa. “You were out of cooking propane the day we met,” he reminds her affectionately.

  “Yes.” Edie gives him a playful swat. “And you were too busy getting ready to play basketball to help me.”

  “It was the ribbon-cutting ceremony,” he protests. “I spent two years raising the funds to build that basketball court. It was a big deal for the community—of course I had to be there.”

  She does an eye roll. “My first day on site and you leave me to fend for myself.”

  “Hey, it’s the toughest job you’ll ever love,” he says, repeating the Peace Corps motto. And it’s true, she did love it.

  Edie rummages through the paper scraps and finds a piece of brown corrugated paper. She begins to cut out an outline of Benin, which always reminds her of a torch.

  “It’s nice to see you’re becoming a part of the community.” Richard finds a die cut of a heart and glues it onto the page.

  “I’m not sure that going to a couple of scrapbooking meetings qualifies, but it’s okay. Oh, and I’ve been having lunch with a girl from work.”

  Richard looks impressed.

  “Livvy Scott. Blond, bouncy. Tall.” Edie wishes Livvy weren’t so pretty. She’s seen pictures of Richard’s exes, girls much more glamorous than she, girls who know how to style their hair and put on makeup, who know how to work their femininity to their advantage. People have called Edie pretty before, but it’s usually in the context of smart pretty, not turn-heads kind of pretty. Edie didn’t know the difference until the seventh grade, when Missy Davidson made fun of the way she was dancing during the Fall Fling.

  “Is this how you do it?” Missy had asked innocently, mimicking Edie’s middle school MTV move. Laughter erupted around them. It took Edie a minute to register that Missy was making fun of her. She suddenly felt clumsy and self-conscious, saw how the same turquoise blouse hung on her like a bedsheet while it hugged Missy’s body and breasts like a second skin. She watched Missy laugh, passing around her Bonne Bell lip gloss to girlfriends while Edie fingered the hard round tin of Carmex in her pocket. She forced a smile, pretending that she was in on the joke and not the joke itself, but the moment had done its job. After that, she let herself fall into the smart-girl category, the girl with a cause, the girl who didn’t have time for frivolous things like makeup and boy talk. She even boycotted her senior prom—the thought of having to find a suitable dress, much less a date, terrified her.

  Edie can’t help adding, “She’s totally your type, I think. Maybe I should introduce you.”

  Richard doesn’t bite. “Nice try, honey, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He knits his eyebrows as he pushes some scattered sequins into a pile. “Livvy Scott … why do I know that name? What does she do?”

  “She manages our display and classified advertising. She acts like a bubblehead sometimes, which I just don’t get. Maybe she thinks she has to play up to the stereotype.” Edie glues Benin onto the page. There. She’s done. It’s actually not half bad, now that everything is on the page together. She wishes she had some mementos from Benin, but she’s made it her practice to live light. She begins to clean up. “Maybe she came into the clinic for something.”

  Richard shakes his head, frowning. “How well do you know her?” he asks.

  “Not very. Her husband is in pharmaceutical sales.”

  “She mention any other family?”

  “It hasn’t come up. Why?”

  “Because,” Richard says, “I think there’s something you should know about your friend.”

  Livvy balances herself on the step stool and peers at a stack of boxes on the top shelf of the closet. It’s that time of year again, when the baby shower invitations start flooding the mailboxes in earnest. Chalk it up to the cold Illinois winters, she supposes. Carol Doyle and Jo Kay Buckley are both expecting in August and they each already have three children. It annoys Livvy that some people have babies so easily, Carol and Jo Kay especially. (“We weren’t even trying!” Jo Kay confided to Livvy on the phone, a fact Livvy finds hard to believe. For as long as she’s known her, Jo Kay has always been trying for something.)

  It doesn’t seem fair somehow. Livvy recalls numerous conversations where all Carol and Jo Kay seem to do is complain: they’re so tired, their husbands don’t help, they don’t have enough time to do the things that they want to do. Livvy doesn’t understand why they want more children. I’ll take one, she wants to say. And I won’t complain.

  Livvy picks a box at random and turns off the closet light. Maybe it’s just sour grapes. She and Tom haven’t been trying that long, and it probably doesn’t help that she’s stressed out about the whole thing, wondering if they’ll have any problems, which is probably why they are having problems. It’s just that she never expected she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant right away if she wanted to. Livvy wonders if maybe, possibly, it’s some sort of divine punishment for what happened. She hopes not, but she doesn’t know.

  She sits on her bed and opens the box. Inside is a mishmash of photos and other childhood memorabilia—a homemade pot holder, one too many God’s Eyes made from Popsicle sticks and yarn. Carol had asked Livvy if she would go through her old pictures to see if she could find any of Carol or Jo Kay “back in the day.” Both women have decided that the only gift they want are photo quilts for their babies with pictures of them and their husbands from birth to present.

  “It’s so important to give children a sense of history,” Carol had informed her. “To let them see where they came from. Who needs more diaper rash cream or another stuffed animal?”

  Livvy had cringed—she’d bought stuffed animals for all of their previous baby showers and had planned on doing it again. “Some of them are kind of cute,” she ventured.

  Carol snorted. “Most of them are surface wash only. How can you really get them clean? It’s no wonder Ruben has asthma.” Ruben is Carol’s youngest, an overweight six-year-old who always has a fat-free licorice whip in hand. “Can you see if you have any pictures from cheerleading camp after sophomore year? I remember you took really good pictures and they turned out pretty cute.” Meaning that Carol looked pretty cute.

  Livvy put it off for a couple of weeks, but now both Carol and Jo Kay are breathing down her neck, leaving voice messages and emails that border on harassment. Livvy reminds herself that they’re hormonal, that Julia had once warned her that pregnant women were not to be reckoned with. That was a long time ago, when Julia was pregnant with Josh and had just passed her first trimester. They were getting pedicures, a birthday present from Julia for Livvy’s twenty-first birthday. Julia was always good about things like that, and it’s one of the many things that Livvy misses.

  But now birthdays aren’t the same anymore because Julia’s absence is so noticeable Livvy would rather not celebrate them. Tom isn’t much for sentimentality—he barely remembers her birthday or even their anniversary. Livvy doesn’t fault him, though, because he’s always been that way. He’s the kind of guy who picks up a card from the drugstore on his way home from work or takes advice from a female salesclerk about what to buy his wife, even if the salesclerk knows nothing about Livvy.

  But it’s not just the special days that Livvy misses—it’s every day. Every day used to be dotted with Julia, with visits, combined errand runs, last-minute babysitting requests. It wasn’t unusual to have two, three, even four phone calls exchanged between them in a single afternoon. It was Julia who remembered to pick up flowers for their mother on Mother’s Day and add Livvy’s name on the card, who cooked extra servings so Livvy wouldn’t have to figure out dinner on her own. It was always like
that, and Livvy misses it.

  Livvy continues to burrow through the box, wading through key-chains, matchboxes, pressed pennies, old report cards. No negatives. There are a few more boxes in the closet and then they multiply as you look in the other rooms or go up in the attic. Livvy hits the side of the box in disgust—this is going to take forever.

  Under a red handkerchief she spots something familiar. She pulls out a picture frame and turns it over, wiping the glass with the sleeve of her shirt.

  The faded photograph shows Livvy and Julia, eight and thirteen respectively, sitting side by side in a bumper car. They’re grinning as they hold on to the steering wheel. It was 1979, the year Julia got to decide where they’d spend their family vacation. The choice was hers because she had not only officially become a teenager, but had ended the school year with a straight-A report card.

  Livvy was used to the look of pride her parents would exchange when talking about Julia, a huge contrast to how they’d cast their eyes to the ceiling when talking about Livvy. Julia was their pride and joy while Livvy was their “handful.” She remembers Julia announcing her decision in their kitchen, the sudden realization that Livvy’s turn might never come, that she would never be as smart as Julia. They would never spend one week doing whatever Livvy wanted.

  Julia chose Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. Their father had groaned about the drive, but finally agreed. Livvy felt a wave of panic once she realized what this meant—her dream place to go was Dutch Wonderland, not even an hour away from Hershey Park—her classmates said it was a million times more fun. But what were the chances her parents would take them back to Pennsylvania? Zero, that’s what.

  The long car ride had been the worst—she got carsick and threw up twice. When they crossed the state line into Pennsylvania, Livvy saw a sign for Dutch Wonderland and felt the tears coming. She squeezed her eyes shut. One tear leaked out anyway and she quickly brushed it away with the back of her hand. Don’t cry, she told herself fiercely. So she didn’t.

  That night at the EconoLodge, Julia suddenly announced, “If it’s not too late, I think I’d like to go to Dutch Wonderland instead.” Livvy held her breath as their father groaned and their mother gave in. Julia quickly shot Livvy a warning look and whispered, “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me.” She had looked her sister in the eye, serious, and Livvy had nodded, her lips obediently sealed tight, even though she knew better.

  Because doing things for other people, for Livvy especially, is how Julia does things for herself. Despite their fights, their arguments, and their disagreements, Julia has Livvy’s back. Or used to. Every childhood memory includes Julia, which would make sense since Julia has been there since the beginning—Livvy’s beginning. It’s unfathomable to think of what her life would have been like without Julia. Julia was the one who took care of her, who thought of her, who included her. It was Julia who saved the day at Livvy’s wedding, when the photographer failed to show up, her gown had ripped, and the flower girls were refusing to walk down the aisle. Julia could fix any problem, get total strangers to work together. Gazing at this picture sadly, Livvy feels the pang of a loss so deep she feels broken in two.

  Anything, she thinks desperately as she touches their faces in the picture. I’ll do anything, Julia. Just ask me.

  The girls just stare back at her happily from that sunny day at Dutch Wonderland, unaware that a day will come when everything will end, when two sisters will cease to talk, unwilling to touch or see each other, unable to offer or accept a helping hand.

  The Avalon Gazette is published on Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s a small paper with a circulation of 2,500, which means that the pay is essentially crap, but Edie isn’t in it for the money. Her boss, Patrick, wanted her to come on board as a full-time staff reporter, but Edie pushed to maintain her freelance status. She covers the community beat and pitches in as needed, which leaves her with enough flexibility to think about other writing projects.

  What Edie is hoping for is an opportunity to string for some of the larger regional papers like the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun-Times, writing special features from the small-town front. She’s overqualified for this tiny paper, but it’s the best she can do under the circumstances. Richard pointed out that Patrick might step down from his editorial responsibilities at some point, in which case Edie would be in a position to become editor.

  But Edie has since realized that Patrick is the kind of guy—and this is the kind of town—that likes to be a part of everyone’s business. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and that’s fine by Edie. It’s one reason she chose journalism—she loves writing and interviewing people, hearing about their lives, about what works and what doesn’t. She doesn’t want to be a glad-hander like Patrick, someone who’s at ease with the politics of business, something Edie is terrible at. She prefers to be in the background, quietly going about her work, minding her own business. Having coffee and doughnuts with the Avalon Chamber of Commerce or local Elks Club isn’t really up her alley.

  When the opportunity came up for Richard to take over as the town’s GP, it seemed like the right thing to do. Having grown up in Springfield, gone to school in Chicago, and then traveled the world, Edie was curious to see what living in a small town would be like. When she and Richard traveled in Africa and Asia after their Peace Corps tour, they lived for weeks in small villages here and there, villages with a fraction of the population of Avalon. They fixed huts, carried water, helped with meals, offered rudimentary health care when asked. They spent hours listening to stories from the village elders or playing games with children who needed nothing more than rocks, sticks, and their imagination. A leaf was a bird, a pile of dirt a mountain. There was always something to do and they were always on the go. Edie could always find something to be intrigued by, which is why she finds herself a bit at a loss in Avalon. She hadn’t expected it to be so, well, quiet.

  But now, as she peruses the past bound editions of the Gazette, she feels that familiar stirring of excitement, the small rush you get when you’ve had too much caffeine or stumbled onto something you know you shouldn’t have. Then again, it’s not as if this is a secret. Here it is in black-and-white. The papers for the last week of May in 2003.

  There’s not a lot—the paper has always been a modest sixteen-page spread with a page for classified ads, and the story is only a few paragraphs. But it’s enough. As Edie reads the story, she knows now that Livvy is harboring a painful memory, a guilty secret she’s chosen not to share with Edie.

  And Edie can’t say she blames her.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mornings used to be Julia’s favorite time of day. She’s an early bird by nature, up with the sun, ready to tackle whatever’s ahead. The rest of the house was slower to move—it took a little more work to rouse them, one too many snooze buttons, feeble protests from beneath the blankets. They’d brush their teeth in a half daze, possibly still dreaming, not quite awake and back in the world as they knew it.

  But now it’s Julia who stays buried under the covers, feigning sleep until Mark and Gracie have left the house. She’ll lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, not wanting to think about laundry or lunch, the inevitable drive in the afternoon to pick up Gracie from school. It seems so futile, so unimportant, these demands of the day. Is this really what they were put on the earth to do? To wipe down counters and sweep away stray crumbs?

  She thinks back to conversations with her mother, who used to keep a constant vigil over Julia in the early days following Josh’s death. Her mother read every book on grief, compiled lists, talked about stages, explained how the grief response for the sudden death of a child is vastly different from other sorts of loss. As if Julia hadn’t figured that out.

  But—and there was always a but—she insisted that Julia would eventually find life worth living again. It wouldn’t be easy, her mother warned, but it would happen. Julia would be able to create a new reality, a new life. Not just for Gracie, but for Josh. In his spirit
, his memory. When she heard this, Julia turned on her heel and went into her room, refusing to talk to her mother or anyone else for the rest of the day.

  The sympathy cards had poured in, one after another, terrible Hallmark sentiments that missed the mark and sometimes made it worse. In one of them someone had written “You’re halfway there,” as if to console her. Her son had just died but she was halfway there, as if she were running a marathon. But that was five years ago and the finish line isn’t anywhere in sight.

  Julia rolls over to stare at Mark’s side of the bed, the side he doesn’t sleep on anymore. She’s alone in this boat of a bed, a California king they splurged on after they bought the house. It had been almost as painstaking a decision as the house purchase itself—should we get it, should we not, should we wait, and so on—but in the end they decided to go for it even if it meant working extra hours to cover the additional expense. When they realized later they would need new sheets and blankets, too, they just laughed and agreed to buckle down and work a little harder. So they did.

  Julia knows she has choices. Working again would help their income, though Mark’s business is starting to pick up and they still have some savings left. Julia used to love work, but she can’t see herself back at Bertram Berry, the small paint company in Freeport where she was an HR manager. She doesn’t want to have to dodge the tentative smiles, have to answer the never-ending, probing question masked with three simple yet ever intrusive words: “How are you?”

  How is she? Let’s see. She has a child and yet she’s childless. She is married to a man who was her first and only love, someone who has morphed into a stranger who passes her in the hallway of the home they share. Her parents have taken refuge and retirement in sunny Florida, where exuberant postcards arrive that have nothing to do with what they’ve left behind. Canasta! Poetry readings! Visits to Butterfly World—Gracie would love it! Call! Visit! We miss you! How are you?