Small Wonders

by Courtney Lux

  vi.

  Of three things I am certain in regards to my mother.

  The first is that she wanted two kids: a boy and a girl. She’d call the boy Michael and the girl Luella. I think she thought Luella would move away to Nashville and be a big country star or something. It sounds like that kind of name, doesn’t it? Luella Morgan or maybe Luella Jean to make it jazzier for the stage. Who’s to say? Maybe if Luella had ever come around, she would have been a great big star. Or maybe she’d have turned out just like my mama. We’ll never know. Or at least I won’t. Maybe my mama’s got her little girl now. Stranger things have happened.

  The second thing I know is that the day my mama and my daddy moved into the trailer in Magnolia Estates, she put lavender-scented liners in all of the drawers and she’s been replacing the damn things every year since then. I hated those drawer liners growing up, hated that if you wanted a fork or a knife or a dishtowel, you had to open a drawer and smell that god-awful artificial lavender crawling all over everything. I told her once I could taste lavender on my spoon every time I took a bite of my supper. She solved the problem with a smack upside my head and the immediate removal of my meal for the night. I still think about those liners and wonder why that was the one small thing she kept up in her home.

  And the third thing I know about my mama is that she doesn’t much care for me. Maybe it’s because I embarrassed her silly with the way I insisted on coming into the world. Maybe it’s because I was the final straw for her with having all them boys. Maybe it’s because I was born just three days after her thirtieth birthday and I don’t know anyone particularly thrilled to turn thirty, especially someone like my mama who imagined bigger things for herself than a pack of sons and a trailer in Magnolia Estates. I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know if my mama imagined a life outside of Bekket, necessarily. Maybe she would have been just fine in the trailer park if she’d of had Mike and Luella and that was that. The way I see it, my mama asked for six boys and a mean drunk for a husband as much as I asked for two different-colored eyes and a mother who doesn’t like me.

  I’m not making excuses and I’m not saying she did her best by me. Nobody did their best by me, but I’m not sure anybody did their best by her either. She wanted something once; something better than what life handed her. She put the damn liners in the drawers for a reason.

  Maybe she’d run out of love by the time I came around. Six boys is a lot and none of us were exactly honor students. Maybe I should have asked her to love me a little more, but I never know how to ask anything right.

  twelve.

  Trip had planned on going out. Maybe getting drunk and finding someone to take him home who would know how to hurt him in the way he wants. He wants to find the side of himself that knows how to forget this kind of disappointment that he thinks he should be used to by now. His back too cold and shoulders too light, he walks the streets of Manhattan for a long time. When the sky grows dark and his feet go too numb, he passes bars and easy marks and goes home. He closes himself in his room to sleep off the remainder of the night.

  Liam stops into his room sometime around midnight and pushes a paper-wrapped canvas at him and whispers, “Happy birthday.” Trip doesn’t open it. He rolls over and goes back to sleep.

  When he wakes again, it is to the sound of a quiet whistle from his doorway and an equally soft voice. “Hey, Lark.”

  Trip shoves himself up and makes a point of not grimacing at the hurt the movement raises under his ribs. “You’re awful brave coming around here.”

  Devon’s lip is split; a spot on his cheek is mottled red and swollen. His nose looks wrong and there is a purple half-moon under each of his eyes. He’s favoring his left foot over his right. “Liam’s out in the family room. He let me in.”

  Trip looks at the wrapped canvas in the corner of his room where his guitar previously rested. “What do you want?”

  Devon sits down in the doorway. He holds out a cellophane-wrapped pack of cigarettes. “Happy birthday.”

  Trip stares at the pack. He doesn’t take it.

  Devon drops his hand back into his lap. “Would’ve liked to have bought your guitar back for you, but it’s already gone. I’m sorry—I tried. I really did.”

  Trip flexes his hands against his thighs. His knuckles are still bruised and sore. “That supposed to make me forgive you?”

  “No.” Devon swallows audibly. His voice wavers. “I fucked up, Trip. I fucked up big.”

  “Yeah.” Trip gives him a stormy look. “You did.”

  “I ever tell you why I order those papers all the way from back home?”

  “I never asked.”

  Devon frets with a hole forming in the knee of his jeans. “I like seeing how small everyone seems. Naomi Johnson still running the consignment shop, Jack Reddy won a fucking pie-eating contest and made the front page. Mostly I like the crime reports: lot of drunk and disorderly, bunch of my classmates using. Made me feel like even if I was struggling like crazy out here, at least I was doing better than all of them. Rather be playing my violin on a street corner for pennies than doing it for one of those stuffy church services.”

  Trip thinks of the papers that have been accumulating in the trash can, most of them still wrapped in the plastic they’re delivered in. He hadn’t stopped to wonder why they were going unread.

  “Made it all the way out here and got into the same shit I got into back in high school—could have just stayed in Bekket. At least I’d be a name there.” Devon meets Trip’s eyes. “First time I ever bought it was off Mike. You were in the truck with his girlfriend. Do you remember that?”

  Trip shakes his head. “We did that a lot.”

  “Well, I remember.” Devon turns the pack of cigarettes over in his hands. “You were just a little shit—maybe six or seven—you were standing up on the bench with your head out the sunroof watching.”

  Trip still doesn’t remember, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “I remember wondering what kinda shitty white-trash parents let their little kid ride along for drug deals.” Devon shakes his head. “I thought I had it rough being stuck somewhere so small, and you—poor fucking kid—you were getting smacked upside the head for saying you were hungry.”

  “You trying to get yourself out of the hole you already dug?” Trip glares at him, his anger sparked all over again. “Cause from where I’m sitting, all it looks like you’re doing is digging deeper.”

  “I’m trying to say…” Devon sighs, starts again. “I’m trying to say I was wrong, I guess. Wrong about you and home and everything. I fucked up and I’m sorry.”

  Trip doesn’t have it in him to stay this kind of angry. He pulls his hair back and out of his face with the hair binder from his wrist. “You gonna quit?”

  “Gonna try, I guess.” Devon’s briefly quiet before speaking again. “You talked to your family since you came up here?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “I talk to mine.” Devon picks at a spot where the paint is chip­ping on the doorframe. “They moved up north of Tuscaloosa a couple years back.”

  Trip looks at him then. “You’re gonna go stay with them.”

  “Not doing anything here that I couldn’t do there.” Devon meets Trip’s eyes. “I’m tired. I need out of this.”

  Trip leans back against the wall, the fight gone out of him for now. “Why the fuck did you get back into it in the first place? Things were good, man. We were good.”

  Devon shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore. Not sure it matters.”

  “Guess not.” Trip studies his bruised knuckles. He wants to be angry at Devon—for the drugs, for the guitar, for giving up so easily—mostly he feels adrift knowing there will be no one left who knew him from before New York.

  “I, um, I talked to Scar and Liam yesterday a bit.” Devon scratches delicately at the bridge of his bruise
d nose. “If it’s cool with you, I’ll finish out the week with you guys.”

  “That’s fine.” Trip presses the fingers of his left hand against the bruised knuckles of his right. “Whatever, man.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get out of your hair for now. Don’t blame you if you’re still itching to cave in the rest of my face today.” Devon puts the pack of cigarettes down beside Trip’s knee. He pushes himself to his feet and he turns to leave,

  “I thought things were supposed to get better—isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Everything falls apart and then it gets better?” The words tumble out before Trip can stop them. Now that they’ve been said, though, he looks up at Devon and keeps talking. “We find some magic way to keep the apart­ment; you clean yourself up and play at Carnegie; June grows up to be one of them, like, genius kids and gets lots of scholarships and shit? Isn’t that how this story’s supposed to end?”

  Devon leans back in his doorway. “You left yourself out of that equation.”

  Trip leans back against the wall. “Fine. I get my guitar back and make a thousand dollars every day.”

  “You really think it works that way?”

  “No.” Trip picks at the cellophane wrapper on the cigarette box. “Would be nice if it did, though, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, guess it would.” Devon drags a hand through his hair, lets out a long breath. “Life’s never been all that good to us, though, has it?”

  “Keep hoping it’ll start.” Trip mumbles. He pushes the cig­arettes aside.

  “It might get better, just not the way we thought it would.” The floorboards creak as Devon straightens up again. “Glad I got to see you, Lark.”

  Trip glances up at him again. “Hey, Dev?”

  Devon stops and waits just outside the doorway.

  There are so many things Trip thinks he ought to say to Devon before their time together ends, but, in this moment, he can think of only one. He sticks out his hand. “You’re not a bad guy, all right?”

  Devon’s mouth twitches as if he might smile, but the expres­sion dies prematurely. He shakes Trip’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Trip nods, looks away.

  Devon hesitates before speaking again. “For what it’s worth, if anyone can make it here, Trip, I’d put my money on you over anyone else.”

  Trip listens to a murmured exchange between Liam and Devon when he steps into the family room, and then the door creaking open. When it clicks shut, Trip is immediately lonely.

  He pulls his bag close and trades the cigarettes for the photo­graph. He stares at it for a long time, but he still cannot make sense of this particular disappointment.

  He’s considering going back to sleep when there’s another knock on the edge of his door.

  Scarlett settles beside him and puts June down in the blankets. She offers a red paper cup to Trip. “Coffee for the birthday boy.”

  “She already have hers?” Trip nods at June. “One year old—she could probably start in on the coffee, especially if you mix it in with some formula.”

  “She had a doctor’s appointment this morning and got a booster shot.” Scarlett indicates a purple bandage on June’s arm. “She’s got an ear infection and I’m sure that shot hurt like a bitch. One hell of a first birthday, huh?”

  “I’m sorry I yelled yesterday.” Trip squeezes June’s hand. “Both of you—I’m sorry.”

  “Yesterday was a hard day for all of us.” Scarlett inspects the butterfly bandages on Trip’s cheek. “You especially. Your face looks pretty good, by the way. Better than I thought it would.”

  “Thanks.” Trip looks Scarlett over. Her hair is pulled up into a sloppy bun and she’s wearing her interview outfit. “You seem less bent out of shape today,”

  “It’s her first birthday. All this stress can wait one day.” Scarlett tucks Trip’s pillow between her back and the wall. “If things are about to get messy, I at least want today to be nice.”

  “You’re a good mom,” Trip mumbles.

  Scarlett tugs his hair. “You’re a good fake uncle.”

  “Don’t think anyone’s going to buy that you, me and Junie are blood.” Trip presses his arm to Scarlett’s to highlight the contrast.

  “None of my family’s alive.” Scarlett studies their arms. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Lost two people in under four months,” Trip murmurs. “Some family.”

  “I know.” Scarlett’s smile slips. “It happens. Shit comes undone.”

  “Been hearing that a lot lately.” Trip looks again at the photo.

  Scarlett squeezes his arm. “I’m your family, aren’t I? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re my best friend,” Trip glances at Scarlett, his cheeks warm. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  Scarlett scoots in closer to his side. “Our secret.”

  They both fall silent and watch as June navigates the small space of Trip’s room on shaky feet.

  Scarlett finally breaks the silence. “Nate texted while June and I were at the clinic. He asked me to tell you to check your pockets.”

  Trip angles his hip up to dig in his pockets. The left one is empty, but his fingers hit cold metal in the right. He pulls out a key with a black rabbit foot hanging from it.

  Scarlett smiles at the key. “Guess you got somewhere to stay if we can’t get a new place right away.”

  “You think this is to his place?” Trip turns it over in his hands, wonders when Nate managed to sneak it into his pocket.

  “Honestly, sometimes I think you’re the oldest soul in the world, and then you go and say something that makes me remember you’re still practically a baby.” Scarlett flicks the rabbit foot hanging from the keychain. “Of course it’s to his place, dummy.”

  “Kellan give you one to his?” Trip closes his hand around the key and opens it again, mildly surprised to find it still there.

  Scarlett pulls a silver key from her pocket. “A long time ago.”

  “None of this feels too fast for you?” Trip turns his key toward Scarlett.

  She returns Kellan’s key to her pocket. “When it’s right, it’s right.”

  Trip puts the key down and lifts his coffee cup. He takes a sip and stares down at the lid. June fills the quiet with her happy babbling as she tears at the paper on the canvas in the corner.

  “I think maybe Liam’s thinking about going back to Kentucky.” Trip turns the coffee cup between his hands. “He hasn’t said it, but I can see it. He wants to go home.”

  “This is his home.” Scarlett turns to look at him in surprise. “He loves New York. It feeds his creative energy or whatever. Why would he leave?”

  Trip shrugs. “I always kinda figured he’d go eventually. All the way back when I first met him.”

  “You think everyone’s going to leave you.” Scarlett bumps her knee against his. “Stop being so paranoid.”

  “Jude left, Dev’s leaving. I don’t have a whole lot of people left.” Trip wiggles the fingers of his left hand at her. “Keep waiting for you to come home with a ring and tell me you and Kellan are getting a place in Scarsdale or some shit.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, I told you.” Scarlett pushes his fingers down. “Liam’s not either, and even if he does, you’ve got me and you’ve got Nate, don’t you?”

  “We—me and Nathaniel—we had a deal.” Trip stares at the too-barren corner of his room. “I was entertainment, he was a meal ticket. It was good, but that’s all it was ever supposed to be.”

  “You wanted more from him than that.” Scarlett picks up the key to Nate’s apartment. “Clearly he wants more than that, too.”

  Trip raises his eyebrows at her. “You the mind-reader now?”

  “You picked him, Trip. Eight million people in this city, and you picked him off of the sidewalk.” She prods Trip’s neck wit
h the edge of the key. “And he picked you back.”

  “And Nathaniel accuses me of being a romantic. Jesus.”

  “You are.” Scarlett puts the key back down between them.

  “Thought you had to be nice to me today.” Trip shoots her an icy look.

  “I am being nice.” She nudges his shoulder with hers. “It’s not a bad thing.”

  “I’m not some pansy-ass romantic.” Trip folds his arms across his chest. “Liam’s a romantic, but not me.”

  “He is, but so are you.” Scarlett draws her knees up under her chin. “It doesn’t make you weak. It’s brave. It’s the bravest thing you can be, especially right now when everything’s falling apart. It means believing things can still be okay.”

  Trip sticks a foot out to balance June when she teeters pre­cariously. She keeps upright and turns a sunny smile his way. “When’d she start walking?”

  “Couple days ago.” Scarlett offers June a finger to hold onto. “She said ‘mama’ and ‘more,’ too. All in one day.”

  Trip watches June take a few more wobbling steps. “She was barely crawling at the end of summer.”

  “Funny what just a few months can do, huh?” Scarlett elbows him lightly in his ribs.

  Trip goes quiet, then says, “He told me he loved me.”

  Scarlett kisses June’s fingers wrapped around the edge of her hand. She doesn’t seem surprised. “He’s good for you. You talk more; you’re sweeter.”

  Trip doesn’t know what to say to that.

  Scarlett studies his profile. “Would it be so bad to admit you love him back?”

  Trip cradles his cup of coffee. “Maybe some people just aren’t built to do it—fall in love, I mean.”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t think you’re one of those people.” Scarlett sits back against the wall. “You went to him when you fought with Devon.”

  Trip sips his coffee. It’s cold. “Yeah, so?”

  “There’s something to be said about the people we go to when we get our worst news.” Scarlett tips her head onto Trip’s shoul­der. “Especially when that person is the same one you want to go to with your best news.”