Between Two Skies

by Joanne O'Sullivan

  “If I had a dime for every guy who threw up after he kissed me, I’d be living on my yacht in the Caribbean,” says a guy with a do-rag on his head.

  “I feel like throwing up just thinking about kissing you,” Jason jokes, and they make faces at each other.

  I explain how embarrassed I am, how awful it will be going back there and facing Tate. And what if he told Mary Katherine, who likes him, that we kissed?

  “Oh, honey, don’t even think about it. Stay here. I’m going to get you on a plane home tomorrow,” says Delbert.

  My jaw literally drops. “Oh, no. I mean, thank you. I couldn’t, though.”

  “I won’t hear another word about it,” says Delbert. “It’s the least I can do.”

  I’ve never been on a plane before. How much must it cost?

  “Just stay here and have fun with us,” says Jason brightly. “We’ll show you a good time. I don’t drink, either. Not like these degenerates,” he adds with a wink, looking around at the other guests.

  I send a text to Tate: Hope you’re feeling better. I’m with my next-door neighbor from home. I’m going to stay here and they’ll get me back to Atlanta tomorrow. Thanks and have fun! I get a text back from him around three: Sorry about last night. I don’t really remember much. See you at school.

  So I go to Krewe of Freret and spend the weekend with five middle-aged gay men and an eighty-year-old woman. It is the best place that I could be. They’re my people. I can just be Bayou Perdu Evangeline here.

  When Delbert and I have a moment alone together, I bring up the plane ticket. “I really appreciate your offer for the ticket. And right now I don’t know what else I would do. But I have to pay you back for it. I babysit after school a lot. It might take a few months, but I will pay you back.”

  “Listen,” he says. “It’s not open to discussion. I’m giving this to you. It’s a gift. Everyone gets into spots like this when they’re around your age. I know I did. And someone bailed me out. I’m paying it forward. When you can, you’ll help out someone younger who needs it, too. And besides, you and your family are good neighbors, and good neighbors help each other out.”

  I tell him about my parents’ plan: Daddy coming back, the rest of us staying in Atlanta.

  “How do you feel about that?” he asks.

  “All I want to do is get back to Bayou Perdu,” I say.

  “That’s funny,” he says. “All I wanted to do when I was your age was get away from it.” He looks like he’s thinking hard about something. “I’m going to tell you something, and I hope I’m not overstepping my boundaries. You are at an important point in your life, where you can start making decisions for yourself. They’re not always going to be the right ones. But they need to be yours. It’s not easy to go against what your parents think is right. Trust me — I know that. But at the end of the day, you have to be true to yourself, whatever that may be.”

  He puts me in the cab to the airport on Sunday morning with a printout of the ticket he bought me and a ten-dollar bill to give the cabdriver as a tip.

  “And a bit more unsolicited advice,” he says. “Don’t lose your head over some guy. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”

  When I get home that afternoon after the plane, train, and bus, Mandy is alone, watching TV. There’s something subdued about her.

  “How’d it go with Byron?”

  She shakes her head. “I ended it,” she says with genuine sadness. “The thing with me and Byron is, we have so much history together. And I guess I kind of realized that’s all we’ve got. You can’t mistake history for a future.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “But I think you made the right decision.”

  “What about you?” She’s sympathetic when I tell her. “Don’t believe Elly Reynolds,” she says.

  “But what else do I have to go on? He hasn’t been in touch in over two months.” That’s a hard fact, not just hearsay, like Jason said.

  On Monday, I see Mary Katherine in the hall. I’m terrified that she knows I kissed Tate, but to my shock, she comes rushing over with a smile on her face. “Oh, I’m so glad you made it back!” she chirps. “I got your message about not needing a ride because your neighbor got you a plane ticket. Awesome!”

  “How did it go for the rest of the trip?”

  She is beaming. “Uh-mazing. You know after you helped me with Tate, I just stayed by his side all night. And by the end of the weekend, we were really together!”

  I feel myself blushing. “That’s great, congratulations!”

  “How’d it go with your boyfriend in Baton Rouge?” she asks enthusiastically.

  “We’re not together anymore,” I say.

  Her face falls. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “His loss.”

  When I see Tate at lunch, it’s clear that he doesn’t remember the kiss at all.

  “Well, did you have your long-awaited reunion?” Chase asks when I see him after school.

  I tell him what happened. His mouth drops.

  “That doesn’t sound right,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think you should just take that girl’s word for it. Also, I think you should start bombarding her phone with hate messages. Really make life hell for her.”

  “Not my style,” I say.

  “Totally my style,” he says. “Give me her number.”

  Instead we go to the taqueria for chips, and we spend hours concocting fake revenge strategies to exact on Kaye and Elly. “I mean it, though,” says Chase when he’s dropping me off at home. “Tru just isn’t the kind of guy who would do that.”

  The shock of that weekend has turned into numbness, and now the numbness has just settled on me, like a fine coat of dust. It prevents me from feeling most anything. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed in the morning and drift through my day. Sometimes I think I should call Danielle and share it with her. But who wants to talk when all you’ve got to share is bad news?

  About a week later, I get a note from the office. It’s a request that I report to the counselor. I can feel heat rising up my neck. What did I do?

  The sign on the office door says MS. BELL, GUIDANCE. Maybe it’s about college applications. I knock.

  “Come in.” Her voice is friendly, warm.

  I push the door open.

  “Hi, Evangeline. How are you?” she asks, as if we’ve known each other forever.

  “Fine.”

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you here today.”

  I nod.

  She glances down at a file open on her desk. I recognize my handwriting.

  “You were displaced by Hurricane Katrina last fall. That must be tough.” She’s scanning my face. “That’s a lot to go through.” She sounds sincere. But I can’t make myself say a word.

  “Do you know anyone here in Atlanta?” she asks.

  “My aunt. My grandmother came with us.”

  “It’s great to have that support.”

  I nod. She keeps looking right at me with this sympathetic look.

  “Evangeline, have you seen a counselor or a therapist since Katrina?”

  I shake my head. I didn’t know anyone who’d seen a therapist until Chase told me his parents made him go to one when he got kicked out of the conservatory.

  “The teachers and I work together to identify students who might need help and probably wouldn’t ask for it.” She lifts the paper on her desk. Of course, it’s one of my personal experience essays from English class. I knew I shouldn’t have turned that in. “Ms. Fine was concerned after she read your essay that you might be experiencing depression as a result of your displacement.” She glances down at the page again. “You’re an amazing writer. The images that you talk about seeing after Katrina. I can’t imagine having to go through that. What you’re describing here — the numbness, not being able to sleep. Those are symptoms of depression. It’s not uncommon in teenagers in general, but also for people who’ve undergone the kind of trauma you’ve experienced.”

 
; I feel this strange floating sensation, like I’m above this scene looking down at it.

  “Writing it out — as you did here in this essay — is one way to work through things. But talking could help, too. You can come talk to me anytime. You don’t have to have an appointment. Just stop by.” She hands me a brochure. Depression: What It Is and What You Can Do About It. The girl in the black-and-white picture has a faraway look in her eyes and is staring off into the distance.

  Sitting in the back of Precalculus, I take out the brochure.

  WHAT IS DEPRESSION?

  Depression is more than occasionally feeling blue, sad, or down in the dumps. Depression is a strong mood involving sadness, discouragement, despair, or hopelessness that lasts for weeks, months, or even longer. Depression affects more than a person’s mood. It drains the energy, motivation, and concentration a person needs for normal activities. It interferes with the ability to notice or enjoy the good things in life. Depression can get better with the right attention and care — sometimes more easily than a person thinks. But if it’s not treated, things can stay bad or get worse. That’s why people who are depressed shouldn’t wait and hope it will go away on its own.

  It’s the feeling I get. I feel it now, but it’s different — fear mingled with relief. I’m afraid that I have something. Something that has a name. That feeling of going around like I’m touching everything through heavy gloves, hearing sounds muffled through a thick layer of fluff, vague and indistinct. I slip the brochure back into my notebook.

  The next day after lunch, I stop by Ms. Bell’s office. She’s sitting with her back to the door and I almost walk away. But just as I’m about to, she turns and notices me. Her face lights up.

  “Hi, Evangeline! It’s great to see you back here. Come on in.” She ushers me to a chair.

  Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing here. “I read the brochure,” I say.

  She nods again and looks as if she’s waiting for me to say something. “Is there . . . I mean, is it something you have to take medication for?”

  “Not necessarily. For some people, medication is the answer. For others, just talking to someone can help.”

  So I start talking to Ms. Bell. She listens to everything I say about my family, nodding, sometimes saying only “Hmmm” or “How did you feel about that?” I find that the fact that she doesn’t talk makes me want to talk more. I tell her things that don’t seem important, and sometimes she’ll ask me a question about them and then I’ll realize that maybe they are. Like the way Mandy and I have always fought. She’ll say things like “Sounds like you two are really different” or “Sounds like you’ve formed some alliances in your family.” I thought that I would be talking about Tru. But what comes out is about my family. “Sounds like you’re often in the role of helper,” Ms. Bell says one day. “But you could use some help, too, sometimes. It’s OK to ask for help. It’s OK to need things from other people.”

  I tell her about Danielle. How close we were. How I thought that when we finally reconnected, we’d be talking all the time. But it hasn’t turned out that way. Once we caught up on everything that happened to us, it was obvious that things couldn’t be the same. We were living different lives. And one of the big reasons we’d been so close before was that we’d been so close physically.

  “I always thought that our friendship was more than that. I never thought it would depend on being in the same place.”

  “It sounds like it is deeper than that. You can still cherish her friendship the way you always have, but the way you maintain your friendship will be different. It’s painful to make these changes, no doubt about it. But you can always hold a place in your heart for her.”

  We talk about my wanting to go home.

  “It’s completely natural for you to feel that way,” she says. “It’s home.”

  “And I want to help fix it.”

  “Of course you do,” she says. “It’s the place you love.”

  I don’t know how it works, but when I leave her office, I feel lighter somehow. Something has lifted.

  I think about suggesting to Mandy that she talk to Ms. Bell too, but I know better than that. I don’t think talking is what she needs. She needs to hit a softball really hard. She needs to run fast and feel the wind behind her. She needs to win.

  “You know varsity softball tryouts are next week, right?” I ask her one night when we are doing our homework at that tiny kitchen-bar countertop before I go visit Mamere.

  She looks up at me suspiciously. “Why? Are you thinking of trying out?”

  I roll my eyes. “Come on. Why wouldn’t you do it? When Byron was here over Christmas, you said you would.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m never going to humiliate myself again after what happened with cheerleading.” It strikes me how she sounds just like Mama. I’m NEVER coming back here.

  “You are one of the best players in the entire state of Louisiana. Why wouldn’t you make the team?”

  She gets up and walks away.

  She needs my help. “I could catch if you want to practice.”

  She sighs and comes back to the counter, her shoulders slumped. She looks me in the eye.

  “I don’t know. I might.”

  I notice when I come back from Aunt Cel’s house that she is in sweatpants, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s humming.

  “Been out for a run?” I ask.

  She cracks a smile. “Just around the apartment complex. But it feels really good.”

  When I’m heading to the bus after school a week later, I see a paper taped to the entrance to the gym. It’s the names of the people who made the girls’ varsity softball team. Mandy’s name is on the list. I feel a lift.

  And then when I get home, there is even more news.

  Daddy is sitting on one of those bar stools at the kitchen counter with a bunch of papers spread out in front of him. I see a big manila envelope sticking over the edge. Everything clenches up in my chest. This is it. It’s the paperwork for the trailer.

  I am practically standing over him and he still doesn’t notice me. I scan the paperwork. It’s got an address and a unit number. My heart will beat through my chest. “We got it?” I blurt out.

  Daddy looks up. He nods and turns back to the page. I had pictured this differently. That we would be hugging each other, jumping up and down. It’s our ticket home. But it hits me hard. Another storm. The storm that will come when I tell them I’m going with him. It feels so much fiercer than Katrina. I put my arm around Daddy’s shoulder and he hugs me. We stand there wordlessly for a few long minutes.

  I go upstairs and call Kendra. “We got the trailer,” I say.

  “High five!” Kendra says. “We may beat you back by only a few days!”

  “Well, here’s the thing. We haven’t talked about who’s going back yet.”

  “Oh.” She sounds a little less excited now. “Well, keep me posted.”

  I go downstairs for dinner. Mandy’s at softball practice. Daddy’s in front of the TV with a bag of chips. Mama says she had a late lunch and she’s not hungry. I stand at the refrigerator door and look for something that I can put in the microwave.

  I grab a leftover bowl of macaroni and head back upstairs. I’m halfway through my homework when I hear voices raised angrily downstairs.

  “So, you’re going?” Mama is trying to control her voice so I won’t hear.

  “I’m going.”

  “Fine. Go. We’ll be in a strange city by ourselves.”

  “Strange city? You’re the one that said this is your home now. Your mother and sister are here.”

  “Oh, please. You’re so selfish. Just go. Go and ruin your life. I really don’t care anymore.”

  Silence.

  I feel rage welling up in me. Before I know it, I am rocketing down the stairs.

  “You think he’s selfish? You are the only one in this family who doesn’t want to go home.”

  Her face is contorted with shock
.

  “Evangeline, don’t talk to your mother —” Daddy starts.

  But I interrupt his interruption. “No, I am not going to shut up. Your stupid friends and your stupid job and your stupid clothes. You could care less what Mandy and I are going through.”

  “Oh, of course! I’m the bad guy! I caused Hurricane Katrina!” Her face is practically purple now, and her voice is hoarse, cracked. “I worked my fingers to the bone for eighteen years to keep this family afloat. Why is it that you think I want to stay here, Evangeline? Because I’m an evil person? A bad mother? Have you ever thought about the fact that I want more for you? That I want you to have a nice life and a better school and a good place to live so that your life isn’t so hard later?”

  “I don’t care about it being hard. This isn’t the life I want.”

  “Then you’re being stubborn and childish. You can’t see that you’d be better off here.”

  I feel something explode in me, like an organ rupturing.

  “That’s all you care about. Being better off.” I wave my hand around wildly. “With the stupid flat-screen TV and the stainless-steel kitchen. What about your family? Why aren’t we enough for you?”

  The room goes silent. Delbert’s words come back to me. You are at an important point in your life, where you can start making decisions for yourself.

  “I’m going back to Bayou Perdu. That’s what’s best for me. I can either go with Daddy or I’ll go back alone and stay with Kendra and Ms. Denise when they get their place. But I am going back.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mama says. But I can tell there’s a little edge of fear in her voice.

  “Evangeline . . .” Daddy starts.

  I turn and walk away. I meant every word I said.

  Mandy comes in noisily after the lights in the hall have already been turned off. She bursts into the room in her sweats, her hair in a ponytail, her face beaming. She plops down next to me on the bed.

  “Thanks for kicking my butt into trying out for softball. You were right. I am one of the better players. The equipment manager — this guy called Chris — drove me home. First, we stopped to get some water at the gas station, and then he got lost. Then we sat in the car talking for, like, an hour.” She finally notices that I’m not responding to her. “What? Why do you look like that?”