Sycamore

by Bryn Chancellor

  “I’m not doing anything. Just taking walks. When I can’t sleep.”

  “You can’t go roaming around any time you want. Okay? It’s not safe. You have to be careful. Even here. At the very least, leave a note.” She sighed and pulled Jess closer. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”

  Jess nestled into her mom’s shoulder, wishing she could fall asleep and wake up with the world restored: a teenage girl with a father, with a best friend down the street.

  The rain started Friday afternoon. The news predicted a two-day storm, a real gully-washer, with snow falling that night north in Flagstaff. So Jess and her mother went to the store, pulling up the hoods on their jackets and scurrying inside, where the bread and milk were already sparse on the shelves. As Jess pushed a cart down the aisle, its front wheel wobbling, she saw someone ducking around the aisle. Dani. Jess let go of the cart and ran after her, her mother calling out behind her.

  She hit the corner and almost ran into a display of cereal boxes, knocking two loose from the stack. She tossed them on the stack and then walked fast past the packaged meats and deli, scanning the aisles for Dani. But she couldn’t see her. When she reached the front of the store and peered out, she spotted a dark-haired girl dashing through the rain to a car parked behind a cluster of shopping carts. Jess couldn’t tell if it was her. She’d started to run out into the rain when her mom grabbed her elbow.

  All Saturday it rained, and Jess and her mom stayed indoors, playing pinochle and drinking hot cocoa, the windows foggy with the steam of their breath. Throughout the night, the rain drummed the roof, sneaking into Jess’s dreams and startling her awake every hour or so with a sense of unease, a question at the back of her throat: Who’s there?

  Early Sunday, bleary from her restless night, she brewed a pot of coffee and decided to make buttermilk pancakes for her mother, frying them in butter in the skillet and heating the syrup bottle in a warm pan like her mother did. When her mom woke, she said, “Okay, who died?” and then laughed, ruffling Jess’s hair. Jess ate three and a half, slathered with butter and syrup. Queasy, she loaded the dishwasher. Starting over. Back on the road to normality.

  The rest of the afternoon, her mother napped on the living room sofa with the TV blaring news and reruns of cop shows. Jess stayed in her room. Cold and damp, she put on one of her dad’s wool sweaters she’d buried deep in the closet, and it hung down to her thighs. She pulled his cards from the desk drawer and spread them across the bed before bundling them up again. She took a shower, the extra-hot water scalding her skin and scalp red. By late afternoon, she sat at the desk and watched the rain pummel the driveway, bend the branches of the jacaranda. The flat, gray sky muddled her sense of time, and she began to feel as if she were waiting for someone, listening for the sound of arrival. The hair on her neck rose. Not a welcome arrival. A sense of threat. Someone or something coming to get her.

  Jess hunched in the desk chair, feeling the weight of herself, her breath feathery in her throat. She wrote:

  The first day of winter

  You wait in the dark

  for what lies in wait

  Wait, wait, don’t tell me:

  You feel the full weight of your decisions

  Waiting for a weight off your mind

  Well, don’t wait up

  Wait, I’m not finished.

  Wait, is this what I ordered?

  Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.

  Just wait till your father gets home.

  Wait a minute: how heavy is

  the weight of the world?

  How much weight can you bear?

  I’ll wait for your reply

  Then she scratched it out with ink, line by line, until it was illegible.

  She jumped up and ran into the living room. Her mom was still asleep on the sofa, her arm dangling off the side, the cordless phone and a plate with crackers and cheese at her fingertips. Jess picked up both, putting the phone in the charger, the plate in the sink. She took deep breaths and paced in the kitchen. The oven clock ticked to 4:35, and the sense of foreboding swelled. She gripped the oven handle. She needed to go out, take a walk.

  In the bedroom, she pulled her puffy coat from the closet, and tore a piece of paper from her notebook.

  She wrote,

  Mom,

  I’m going out for a walk (it’s about 4:45). I need to clear my head. I’ll be back in a couple hours. Don’t worry.

  Love, J-bird

  After taping the note on the coffee table under the remote, she shrugged on her coat, stuck her notebook inside against her chest, and zipped up. The bottom of the sweater hung like a skirt over her jeans. She leaned over her mother, picked up her dangling hand, and rested it across her chest. She unfolded a quilt and covered her. Her mother sighed, her eyelids fluttering, and Jess tiptoed backward. From the front closet, she dug out an umbrella—her father’s, she realized, a black one with a heavy plastic handle—and she slipped outside.

  She ran down Roadrunner Lane, her canvas shoes soaked within minutes. The rain, strong as a summer deluge, stung with winter ice. Running helped warm her, but her hand holding the umbrella ached, and she cursed herself for not grabbing gloves. With each splashing step, though, the glaze of dread began to slough off and fall away from her shoulders.

  When she reached the first dip in the road, she paused. Water rushed across it, but the stream wasn’t too wide, maybe three or four feet. She stepped a few feet back to get momentum, ran forward, and jumped, her heel clearing the water with inches to spare. She laughed, glad for once of her height and long legs and muscle memory, at the long-ingrained instinct to leap.

  At the bottom of the hill, she turned on Quail Run and passed the orchard, glimpsing a blur of twinkle lights through the rain. She slowed to a walk, panting hard, after she veered down College Drive near the Syc’s gates. The rain had drenched the legs of her jeans and the bottom of the sweater, but she was warm inside her coat. The campus looked abandoned, with students and faculty cleared out for the holidays. She didn’t turn onto Piñon Drive as she so often had, but headed instead to Main Street and the District. There, she spied the bright windows of the Patty Melt, and she jogged toward it. A blast of warm, greasy air greeted her when she pulled the door open, and she sighed in relief.

  Inside, Jess dried off in the bathroom as best she could with the hand dryer and brown paper towels, and then she ordered a Coke and a large side of fries at the counter from Rose Prentiss, who said hello and made a crack about the vacant restaurant, everyone afraid they’d melt in the rain. Snuggled in a booth by the window, Jess picked at the basket of fries at her elbow, dipping them in a glob of ketchup. She kept her eyes on the street, watchful, a twinge of unease lingering, but there was little traffic. Water pooled in the lot, sloshed against a concrete parking barrier. Even the gas station across the street was slow. A streetlight snapped on, fanned a glow across the sheets of rain. She pressed down all the buttons on her soda lid, liking the click and dent of plastic under her thumb. With her fingernail, she carved half-moon impressions into the Styrofoam. She checked the clock over the counter. Five o’clock on the first day of winter. Shortest day of the year. She was suddenly ravenous, and she stuffed several fries in her mouth, barely chewing and gulping them down, the salt and grease coating her teeth. The tension in her eased, and for the first time in weeks, she felt a little lighter, a little like she might be okay. She licked the tips of her fingers before wiping them on a napkin.

  Rose came over to her table. “Hey, Jess? My manager said we’re closing up early. You’re the only customer we’ve had in hours.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she said. She shoved the last fries in her mouth and pulled on her coat, plucking at the damp collar. She snapped the rubber band at her wrist. She didn’t want to go home yet, but she wasn’t sure where else to go.

  “Do you need a ride?” Rose said. “Angie’s coming to pick me up. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking you home.”

  Jess smiled. “Tha
nks. That’s okay. I’m already wet anyway. I think I’ll walk a bit more.”

  “You sure?”

  Jess nodded and licked the salt from her lips. She gathered her umbrella, swollen with water, from beneath the table. “I’ll be fine.”

  For the first time, Jess crossed through the gates of the Syc. She wandered down the barren pathways and tried a few doors, but they were locked up for the weekend and upcoming holiday. She found a bench under a covered patio and curled up, holding her knees close for warmth. She thought about botany. The scientific study of plants. She tried to picture herself walking these sidewalks, leaning on lab tables, looking under microscopes. She thought of a dead horned toad, looking at a fragment of its eye with Dani at her shoulder. Could she stay in this town? Dani would move away, go to a good school somewhere in another state. She wouldn’t have to worry about running into her. Maybe once she was behind these gates, she could be someone else.

  Rain sluiced down the side of the building, gushed across the concrete. Another half hour, maybe, and she’d head home. Her mom would start to worry if she stayed out too long. Under her coat, she shifted her notebook, which dug into her ribs, and then tried to dry her face with her scratchy sweater. Too cold to sit still, she stood and began to pace. She jogged back and forth as the rain clattered on the roof like hooves. As she did, she caught sight of the sign on the door: Department of Theater. Dani’s mom’s building. She traced the sign’s lettering. She breathed on the adjacent window and drew a crooked heart, and her optimism faded. Her throat ached as she thought of her best friend, as the shame and guilt swelled.

  Shivering in her damp clothes, she opened the umbrella again and walked the two blocks down to Dani’s. Adam’s old car and Rachel’s both sat in the driveway, but the lights were still off. Through the window next to the front door, though, she could see a faint glow coming from the other side of the house.

  Jess let herself through the unlocked side gate to the backyard, staying in the shadows along the fence. From there, the light shone bright through the window. Dani sat at the dining table, reading a book. As Jess watched, Rachel came into the room. She paused and put a hand on Dani’s shoulder, dropped a kiss on her head, and then moved out of sight. After a moment, the attic light snapped on.

  Dani looked down at the book but didn’t turn the page. From that angle and distance, she could have been her father, so closely did her face and posture resemble his.

  Her best friend, reading a book. As if nothing had happened. As if no time had passed.

  Teeth chattering, breath steaming, Jess walked toward the house, mesmerized by its yellow glow, a strange kind of fire in the rain. She climbed the stairs to the deck and crossed to the sliding glass door. She closed the umbrella, wrapped its band tight, and set it on the table. When she reached the door, she pressed both palms to the glass, and when the glass was cold, she gasped, so sure she’d been it would bring warmth.

  Hold Still, This Is Going to Sting

  To be fair, the dog was dead. Dani had gone over to check the Captain’s food and water, like she said she would, and found him lying on the kitchen floor. It wasn’t as if she stuck him in the freezer alive. It was summer. What else was she supposed to do?

  “You could’ve called the vet,” her mother yelled through the receiver. “You could’ve called one of us.” Static scratched on the line.

  Dani said, “It was the weekend. I was working. I’m calling you now, aren’t I?”

  “Three days later.”

  “I didn’t want to bother you during your—retreat thing.” Her mother and her husband Hugh were at some mountain sanctuary outside Prescott, “realigning” themselves, as Hugh called it.

  “It’s not a bother to tell us our dog has died. It’s not a bothersome detail.” Her mother sniffled. “Did you cry? I know you didn’t cry.”

  Dani said, “No.” She hated crying. Hated it, that trembling feeling rising up, the burn, the lack of control. “But I wasn’t glad. I didn’t gloat. The dog was old.” An understatement. The Captain was blind and tottered about in a striped baby onesie that covered his furless, mole-like skin. Her mother had gotten him soon after Dani failed out of Stanford seventeen years ago. Captain Asshole, the little mayor of bark town, destroyer of shoes and carpets. The Captain would snarl and lunge at her legs, corner her in the hallway, and once or twice she gave him a little kick, even though he had no teeth left and could only gum at her ankles. When she’d scooped him with the dustpan into the plastic trash bag, he’d weighed next to nothing. She’d cleared out a frozen pizza and a few bags of vegetables, and he fit right on the shelf.

  Dani said, “I’ll take the body down to the vet today. Okay? I’ll go over and get him. It’s my off day.” She’d just worked four twelve-hour shifts back to back. She yawned and opened the morning’s paper.

  “Never mind. I’ll do it. I’ll be home tomorrow. Hugh’s staying longer with Dr. Steve.” She sighed. “Oh, Dani,” she said, but what Dani heard was this: I thought you were getting your act together. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.

  Dani stared down at the newspaper. “Oh my god. Mom—”

  But her mother had hung up. Dani kept talking to the dial tone. “They found Jess Winters. Or they think it might be her.” The phone line started bleating. She clicked it off.

  Dani smoothed the newspaper page. She got the scissors and cut out the article. She pressed her finger on the photo—that same old photo of Jess with curly brown hair and eyes lined with kohl. Dani could feel the metal heat of a Bic lighter on her thumb, the hot eyeliner thickening along the tops of her lids, Jess’s breath on her face: Don’t blink. Dani let the scrap of paper flutter to the coffee table.

  Before she went to get the dog out of the freezer, Dani walked to the college to water the plants in her mother’s office, which she had promised but forgotten to do, and then to the District to get a coffee at Alligator Juniper. She had moved from an apartment near the medical clinic into a studio guest house next to the college. She rented the place from Esther Genoways, her high school Humanities teacher, who had quit teaching a couple years ago to open Yum Bakery. “It’s just Esther now, honey,” she said, but Dani still thought of her as Ms. G. The guest house was tiny but clean and private, tucked under a large shady sycamore with a stone path and picket gate. For years Mr. Manning, her high school history teacher, had lived in it, but a few months ago he’d married his partner and moved to San Francisco. Dani didn’t know if she’d call it home, but it was the first place she could see herself staying for more than six months or a year. She might even buy a frame for her mattress and box spring. The weather had cooled from last week’s heat wave, and blooming milkweed, phlox, and globe mallow flung bright color along the street. Dry stalks of grass in the cracks of the pavement crunched under her shoes. A phrase began to loop in her mind, something she’d overheard years ago when she’d walked past some girls skipping rope in a driveway: One, two, Jess is coming for you, three, four, she’s at your door. She said it now under her breath, a cadence, as she stepped over the cracks.

  Most of the Syc students were gone for the summer, so the brick paths were open, the buildings cool and quiet. The theater building had a familiar smell of paint and sawdust and air-duct dust. Her mother’s office: Prof. Rachel Fischer (formerly Fischer-Newell). Photo stills from New York stage shows she’d written or acted in and Playbill covers lined the walls. On the desk was a small framed picture of Dani at about age ten, standing on the front porch, her arms stiff at her sides. Back when Dani still had potential. The shadow of the photographer showed on the steps—had it been her mother? Or her father? As Dani poured water on a drooping philodendron, she argued with the imagined voice of her mother in her head. She was getting her act together. Yes, she had barely squeaked out a college degree after ten years in and out of school, and no, she never made it to med school, but she was a good phlebotomist, at the medical clinic for two years now. Her slim, tapered fingers—a surgeon’s hands, her mo
ther used to say—handled needles like a dream. Though her coworkers were standoffish—she’d hear them talk about her, calling her Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass and Ice Queen—she got high marks on her employee evaluations. Good rapport with patients. Natural acuity for venipuncture. It was true: she could manage the difficult sticks, the ones whose veins kept sinking and sliding, the dehydrated elderly folks, the fainters and thrashers. She could even handle Jess’s mother, Maud, coming in. Look to the side of her face. Push down the swell of emotion. It wasn’t heartless to be good at her job, to keep a professional distance. To tell them matter-of-factly, “Hold still. Now this is going to sting,” unlike the others who cooed and patted shoulders and called patients “baby.” With the Captain, she’d acted with clinical instinct: Dead dog on kitchen floor. Hot. Preserve the body.

  She was about to walk inside the coffee shop when she spied Paul Overton through the window. She backpedaled and pressed herself against the wall of the building, holding her breath. She knew from her mom that his wife had recently died of breast cancer, but she’d found out he was home with his little boy from Luz Navarro, who’d told Dani yesterday when she delivered the mail. Luz wasn’t clear whether he had moved home for good. As Luz handed Dani her mail, she said, “Isn’t it so sad?” and, “Hijole, time flies, huh?” Dani had nodded, but she thought now that time wasn’t so much flying as disintegrating. That was another life ago, and she had spent so long trying not to think of it that when she did, it was as if her mental screen was smeared with thumbprints. Moments fractured into shards of color and smell and sound she strung together like a sad, crooked garland.

  She moved behind the building and waited, peeking around the corner until Paul came out, coffee and keys in hand. There he was: still tall and lean with his round moon face, but all his black woolly hair was gone, shaved right off, making his ears look even larger—in the sunlight, the tips seemed to glow red. Even after all this time, she could feel the tension in her body, as if she had absorbed it into her cells. She’d dated other men over the years, had even joined an online site to meet people outside of town, but nothing stuck for more than a few months. No one worth letting in. She gathered the bottom of her T-shirt and wrung it like a washcloth. Paul Overton, her first love, the honest boy who had pulled the pin on her family’s live grenade.