by Amy Giles
“We could keep driving,” he offers.
Back in my seat, I position my bag between us like a lion tamer wielding a chair. “Go burn it off, champ. Punch bags, jump rope, chase chickens . . .”
“Chickens are only in Rocky movies.” He tries to wrestle my backpack away. We both laugh.
“Whatever. You train like Rocky, even though you’re never going to actually fight.”
He stops laughing. “Yeah, about that.” He props his arm on the windowsill and rests his head in his hand, closing his eyes. “There’s an amateur competition coming up that I might do.”
I pause. He’s joking. He’s got to be. “Right.” I laugh. When he doesn’t say anything, I ask, “Lucas, what are you telling me?”
He exhales heavily. “Okay, yeah . . . I’m doing it. But I haven’t told anyone yet.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugs, his jaw set. “To see if I can.”
“To see if you can kick someone’s ass? Because the alternative is having your ass kicked!”
“Why do you think I’ve been training so hard?” he counters. “Don’t you think people who train in any competitive sport have to test their skills at some point?”
“I just thought you were doing this to burn off steam or stay in shape or something. I don’t know. I honestly never thought you were itching to hurt someone!”
Both of his hands squeeze the steering wheel. “It’s not about hurting someone. It’s a sport. Every sport is about fighting and winning.”
I steeple my fingers over my face and shake my head. “I don’t get it.”
He takes a breath and tries again. “Boxing isn’t an all-out punching match. It’s a game of chess. You have to control your mind and your body while always being one step ahead of your opponent. You know that feeling you described having today in the hallway? What your body went through today was ‘fight or flight.’ Everything raced, your heart, your breathing, your blood pressure. When you’re boxing, you have to do the exact opposite, calm your heart rate down, relax yourself mind, body, and spirit so you can see what is happening in front of you. . . .
I purse my lips in disapproval. “So when’s the fight?”
“Next Saturday,” he says, clutching the steering wheel as if he’s physically bracing himself for my response.
“So the day before prom.” He stares back but his silence is my answer. “Well, that’ll make for some fun prom pictures, you looking like your face went through the wood chipper.”
He laughs, even though I’m not joking. “Why are you assuming I’ll lose?”
I grab the door handle to leave.
“Don’t be mad,” he pleads.
I huff. “I’m not mad.” I don’t think. “If you thought I was going to be thrilled about it, you would’ve told me sooner, right? Just give me some time to wrap my head around it. I hear what you’re saying. But my mind keeps showing me pictures I don’t want to see.”
I walk around the front of the car. He rolls his window down. “Jess?”
I lean in. “Look, you can’t blame me for feeling this way. I’ve grown to really like this face of yours. I don’t like the idea of someone messing it up.” I kiss him good-bye.
He waits for me to get in the house before driving to the gym.
The living room lamp is on when I walk in the house. The hallway to the bedrooms is dark. On the coffee table, there’s something new. My parents’ wedding album.
I flip through the pictures, most of them painfully hokey. Mom in her wedding gown, holding a bottle of perfume up, pretending to get ready for her big day.
“I didn’t even wear perfume.” Mom had pointed to the picture a few years ago when we were still a family who believed in happily-ever-afters. “The photographer made me do it. Look, I’m practically squirting it in my ear!”
There’s a picture of Dad at the church waiting for Mom, his hair still thick and wavy, combed away from his face. The photographer had him check his watch and mop his brow with a handkerchief. “Pretend you’re afraid Nicole’s going to leave you at the altar.” As if. Mom was already three months pregnant with Ethan. They had their reception at a VFW hall. Mom’s maid of honor, Maureen, decorated it for less than one hundred dollars with plastic tablecloths, streamers, and paper plates from Party Central. They got a keg from the beer distributor and a sheet cake from Costco.
I can’t help but see the wedding pictures through my mother’s lens and her sadness becomes mine, again. Reminders, every time I look around. They’re always there to ground me just as I’m starting to feel like the worst is over.
Lucas
Jess doesn’t bring up the boxing match again, so I leave it alone. But she does come with me after work the next day to get fitted for a tux. There’s a place a few blocks down from Enzo’s that’s been around forever, Marvin’s Tuxedo Rental, next door to the Everything 92¢ Store. Way to squeeze out the 99¢ store competition.
The bell chimes as we walk in. Jess closes her eyes and takes a whiff, her shoulders lifting as she fills her lungs.
“Mothballs and cigar smoke. Oh my God, this is exactly what I imagined a tuxedo store would smell like!”
We walk around, checking out the styles on the mannequins. Jess’s face lights up at the all-white tux. She stands behind it and places both hands on the mannequin’s shoulders. “I insist!”
I shake my head at her, playing along. “Nope. No way. It’s powder blue and ruffles or nothing at all.”
She pretends to weigh her options, lifting first one hand, then the other. “Powder blue or birthday suit. Hmmm . . . I think that’s a win-win for me.”
I turn around before she can see how my body just weighed in on the matter. I need to get things under control before I get fitted.
A stooped old man comes out from behind a curtain, a tape measure looped around his neck like a loosened tie. The thick lenses of his glasses give him an owlish look. This must be Marvin.
“Hello, hello,” he greets us with an openmouthed grin. “Don’t tell me, let me guess!” He raises one withered hand to stop us from speaking while pressing the other to his forehead, pretending to read our minds. “You have a prom coming up and you need a tux.” His eyes pop open. “Am I right?”
Jess grins. “Yep! Does this one come supersized?” She squeezes the shoulders of the all-white tux.
I shake my head. “She’s kidding,” I tell Marvin.
“I am not!” Jess protests, but Marvin follows me across the store as I put my hand on another mannequin, this one in a white jacket with black pants. I turn to Jess. “My nonna would’ve said this one was snazzy.”
She rolls her eyes. “My bad. All this time, I thought the look we were going for was ludicrous.”
Marvin claps his hands and laughs at us, as if we’re the most charming and delightful customers he’s ever had. I’m afraid his dentures are going to fall out of his head at how hard he’s grinning.
“Yes, this one is snazzy. And very popular. When’s your prom?”
“Next Sunday,” I say.
“Oh.” Marvin laughs. “Waiting to the last minute, huh? Okay, let’s take some measurements. Young lady, would you like to join us?”
“I’d love to.” She claps and skips across the store to us.
I turn to look at her. “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”
“Alien prom pods have taken over. Now that I know what tux you’re going with, I know the perfect dress.”
“Oh. Dress, huh? Can you rent one of those too?” I ask. I obviously forgot that Jess doesn’t have a whole lot of money to buy a prom dress.
“Even better. Don’t worry. It’ll be a surprise.”
Now I’m worried. “Ludicrous surprise, or . . .”
“Ludicrous only works if the two of us are in it together, and since you went rogue without consulting with me, I’m obligated to go snazzy. It’ll be fine, trust me. Your nonna would approve.”
Marvin takes me to the back of the store
and has me step up onto a platform to measure me. Then he runs the tape measure between my legs to get my inseam.
“Have you ever been here before?” Marvin looks up at me, compelled to make small talk from between my legs.
“Uh, no. Never had an occasion.”
“Huh.” Marvin writes down a number on a piece of paper, then wraps the tape around my waist. “Phew. Look at you. You work out or something?”
“Yeah. I box,” I say, a little embarrassed by Marvin’s overexuberance.
“Oh-ho! A boxer, huh. We got us a Muhammad Ali here.” He loosens the tape from around my waist. “I had another fella about your age come in about a year ago. Had your build, exactly.” He writes a number down on a piece of paper. “Wasn’t a boxer though. Football player.”
Oh no.
“Was getting married, he said. Arms up.”
I raise my arms but barely. They feel like they’re made of lead.
“A little higher,” he says.
He was standing right here, right where I’m standing, looking at himself in the mirror. His whole life with Reggie ahead of him.
My chest feels too tight. I stare at my reflection in the mirror. It distorts. The blurry white ghost of Jason stares back at me, watching me get on with my life, without him.
I take a breath but it stalls, never making it all the way to my lungs. I try again and it stutters. My body is falling apart, and I’m watching it happen in the mirror like a car accident I can’t tear my eyes away from. I’m outside my body looking in.
“Lucas?” Jess is standing next to me. “Are you okay?”
“I need air,” I gasp.
I hop off the platform and my knees start to buckle under me. I pull myself up. Jess takes me by the arm to steady me.
Once outside, I lean against the wall, feeling as if my esophagus cuts off each breath. I slide down until my butt hits the sidewalk. People walk by and watch, staring at the big guy sitting on the filthy cement where dogs pee, where drunk people puke, where germ-ridden shoes step every day. Jess gets down on her knees next to me.
“It’s okay,” she says, but she’s scared, I hear it.
I can’t stop my body from doing what it wants to do. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Tears squeeze through anyway.
“Oh God.”
It’s never going to go away, never going to get better.
Jess sits across from me in the booth at the diner down the street, sipping a cup of tea. She insisted on herbal tea and toast for us both, like this is a twenty-four-hour bug that will go away on its own with plenty of fluids, bland food, and rest.
Staring at me over her cup she breaks the silence. “Told you prom was stupid.”
It’s the first laugh I’ve had in half an hour. Once I could stand up on my own, we came to the diner next door, where I popped a Xanax and waited it out.
I stare out the window watching the mash of foot traffic. Mothers in stretchy pants push strollers on their errands. The Q114 bus drives its regular route. A car rolls by, windows down, music blasting so loud the thumping of the bass rattles through the diner windows all the way to my molars.
Everyone’s just going about their business, and here I sit, feeling small and damaged, afraid to look in Jess’s eyes and see if something changed when she looks back at me.
I stare down into my cup. “I’m really embarrassed.”
“What? Why?”
I jerk my head to the side, outside the window, refusing to look up. “For that. For what happened.”
Jess sighs. “Please don’t be. I’m just happy you’re feeling better.”
I pick up a sugar packet and flip it back and forth. “I think you were right though,” I admit.
She takes a sip of her tea, then reaches for a wedge of my untouched toast. “I’m always right,” she says, peeling back the top of a strawberry preserves tub. Slathering it on the toast with her teaspoon, she says, “Which part am I right about this time though?”
I tear the packet open and pour it into the tea. Maybe it just needs a lot of sugar.
“About prom being stupid. Why bother?” I say.
She crunches into the toast and chews, taking a deep contemplative breath through her nose.
“I changed my mind. I want to go now,” she says. I look up in surprise. There’s a dab of strawberry preserves in the corner of her mouth that if we were anywhere else any other time, I would have leaned over to kiss it off. Or maybe she doesn’t even want to kiss me ever again after she watched me curl into a ball on the sidewalk.
“Now you want to go.”
She nods. “Now we have to.”
“Why?”
She sighs and reaches across the table to take my hand. She props it up to thread her fingers through mine.
“Because we need it. We need to start doing things again. Embarrassing, cheesy, fun . . . all of it. Because we can.” She shrugs, like I’m supposed to understand what that means. “Besides,” she adds, “I’m not kidding. The dress I’m thinking of? Holy crap, I’m going to look amazing in it. Just wait, you’ll see.”
A smile takes over my face. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
She tilts her head and makes wide eye contact with me, her face completely deadpan. “When am I ever sarcastic?”
I rub my forehead and laugh. “Who, you? You’re never sarcastic.”
Between our snorts and giggles, and the Xanax, I start to feel better.
Jess
Remember the bridesmaid dress you wore to Brittany’s wedding?
You said it made you look like a giant string bean? Well, thank you in advance, or maybe thank you after the fact. By the time you get this, I’ll have already worn it to PROM! I’ll give you a second to let that settle in.
It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers over here! What’s happening to me?!
After work on Sunday, Lucas drops me off at Marissa’s house.
Marissa’s home is a post-Sandy, modern-construction monstrosity that sits snugly on the edge of the Norton Basin. When they bought the house, Mr. Connell said, “If you’re going to spit in the eye of nature, might as well do it in style!” Style to him meant topiaries at the front entrance trimmed to look like swirling ice cream cones that spit in the eye of nature every day just by existing.
I ring the doorbell. Beethoven’s Fifth chimes. It never failed to crack Marissa and me up. This is actually how Mr. Connell made his money, selling doorbells with different chime selections. Turns out there really is no such thing as a bad idea; people pay a lot of money to have “The Star-Spangled Banner” greet their guests on the Fourth of July.
The door opens to Mrs. Connell’s beaming face.
“JESS!” She folds me into a tight hug. This isn’t awkward at all, I think to myself. I can count on one hand how many times Mrs. Connell has ever hugged me: At Ethan’s funeral. At Gino’s. And today.
She finally releases me. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you.”
“I’m sorry about last time, at Gino’s,” I apologize before walking in. “Sometimes I just really miss her in weird ways.” I shrug and swallow the knot rising up in my throat, hoping she doesn’t want to explore in any greater depth my understatement of the century.
Mrs. Connell waves my apology away. “Jess, it’s fine. I understand, trust me. Come in!” She takes my hand and tugs me over the threshold.
Walking through the foyer, I can feel Marissa’s absence like I’m a human barometer and there’s been a shift in the atmosphere. Even Mrs. Connell’s overabundant enthusiasm can’t mask the aching emptiness of the house without Marissa.
Liam sits on the couch in the den playing his Xbox, ignoring me, as if the doorbell didn’t announce my arrival to probably half the block.
“Hey, Nugget. What’s up?” I call over to him.
Silence.
Mrs. Connell lets out an exasperated huff. “Liam. Don’t be rude. Say hello to Jess.”
He mumbles something
I assume is a coerced greeting.
Mrs. Connell waves for me to follow her. Inside the kitchen, she opens the refrigerator and pulls out a glass pitcher of lemon-infused water. She sits at the table and pours each of us a glass.
“Why is he so mad at me?” I whisper, careful that the vaulted ceilings don’t carry my voice throughout the house.
“He misses both of you,” she says, her face pained. “Marissa went away; then you did. He’s young, Jess. He doesn’t understand that this is hard for you too. In his mind, the only reason why you ever came here was to see Marissa. He feels left behind.”
I actually know exactly how Liam feels. It’s not easy being the one left behind.
I sip my water. Really tasty water, actually. Lemons really elevate water’s game.
Mrs. Connell stands up. “Come on. Bring your water with you. Let’s go get that dress.”
I follow her upstairs. Once we cross the threshold into Marissa’s room, Mrs. Connell gestures for me to take the lead. I know Marissa’s room, and her closet, almost better than she does. In the back, I find it. The emerald-green bridesmaid dress she wore as part of her cousin’s wedding party. Spaghetti straps with a low V-neckline. Simple, easy. Totally me. When I texted Mrs. Connell to ask her if I could borrow it, she was thrilled it was going to get at least one more wear.
“It might need to be hemmed.” She eyes it as I hold it up by my ears to keep it from dragging on the floor. “Can your mom do it?”
“Yeah, sure,” I lie. I’ll figure it out. I mean, it’s a free dress. I can take it from here.
She takes the dress and holds it for me to admire it. “This will be stunning on you. Are you going with the boy you were with at Gino’s?”
I nod. “Yeah. Lucas.”
“Lucaaas?” She raises her eyebrows and stretches out his name, letting me know she needs more.
“Lucas Rossi.”
“Oh,” she says, barely a breath of air but with so much underlying subcontext. Then her head tilts to the side like people do when they’re expressing their condolences. “The Rossis. I know the family.”
Enough said.
“Well . . . that’s just . . . that’s really wonderful that you two found each other. It really, really is.”