The Calculus of Change

by Jessie Hilb

  I climb out of the pool, and Nancy tosses a towel at me. I nod my thanks. I’m not cold like I should be, soaking wet in thirty-eight degrees. I’m hot from the exertion.

  “Three times a week,” Nancy says. “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

  “I can do that, but I need to talk to my dad about membership cost,” I say.

  “You got a job?”

  “No.”

  “No?” she says. Is she judging me?

  “School,” I say. “I’m a school geek, so between studying and choir, I haven’t had much time.”

  “Oh, well, I was going to offer you a work trade, but if you don’t have time . . .”

  “That’s nice. I mean I might have time now. I’m a senior so it’s a little different than last year. What kind of time commitment?”

  “Six hours a week at the front desk, greeting members and touring walk-ins, wiping down equipment once an hour in exchange for your membership. You can do it in one shift or two. We’ll have to look at the schedule, but Saturday evenings are hard to fill.”

  “I can do a six-hour shift on Saturdays. No problem.”

  What else would I be doing besides wallowing in Marissa’s pregnancy or reviewing math homework I’ve already completed?

  “Done, then,” she says. “But you’re here three times a week for masters, no exceptions. It’s part of your work-trade commitment, got it?”

  “Yes. Thank you so much.”

  I wonder how Nancy can just hire me like that without knowing the first thing about me. I wonder how she can be so bossy about me getting to her masters class. But I find myself accepting her challenge, wanting to be there, swimming regularly, losing myself in the water and the exertion. I must need this.

  When I come out of the locker room, Dustin is standing bent over the front desk reading a document. I can’t help but admire the definition in his biceps, the angles of his jawline.

  He catches me staring and looks up. There’s something behind his smile, and I’m not sure if it’s arrogance or if he’s teasing me, but I am curious.

  I shrug and realize I don’t care that he knows I’m staring. I walk out without saying anything, but I think I’ve said a lot. I can’t help myself. I glance back to see if he’s watching me. He’s still looking through the glass doors. He smiles half at me and half to himself, and returns to his document shaking his head.

  Dustin. It’s a good name. Like Aden.

  Jon

  “Let’s drive.”

  We’re on our way home from school, the weather is crap, but I don’t want to be home yet. Isolated in our rooms.

  “Only if there’s licorice involved,” Jon says.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  We stop at the closest gas station and load up on licorice and pop.

  We agree on rap and ’60s rock as our soundtrack. I drive. He eats. Licorice stick after licorice stick.

  “So what did your coach say?”

  “He knows they dropped the possession charges, so he said I can work out with the team and practice minimally. But the team can’t practice with me too much, because it’s hard and fast that I won’t be playing any games this year. And he’ll appeal to the dean about next year.”

  “What do you think?”

  He inhales through his nose, finishing a bright red stick before he says, “I asked the coach for a week off because, honestly, Ade, I might take the rest of the year off.”

  “What about the scholarship?” I think of Brandeis and Boston and how badly I need to leave. Maybe it’s the last time I’ll contribute to the pressure on Jon, but I need to know.

  Jon looks up at me, “I think I need to see if I can get into RISD.”

  My face falls, but I catch myself and smile at him. My little brother. For a second, I see his five-year-old self, dressed in nothing but undies and a cape sitting next to me.

  “I have to try, Ade.”

  “I know you do.” We all do.

  Sabita

  Beauty. I’ve been wrong about it for a long time. I thought it was something to achieve. A destination. But I can’t aspire to be beautiful because it’s not about getting there—it’s about being there.

  The art studio is right across the hall from the choir room. Stools and chairs and countertops made of various materials clutter the room. A soft winter light pours from skylights and windows onto half-done paintings, sculptures, and blown glass. The space is perfectly suited for creation.

  Sabita leans into a patch of light from a window on the far side of the room. She’s elbow-deep in wet clay. Hair tied back, but a few wispy strands fall around her face. Her brow is pinched in deep concentration. Music plays on an antiquated boom box sitting on the counter next to her.

  She makes eye contact with me briefly. Her eyes relax into a momentary smile but not long enough for her mouth to catch up. She’s working intently. She moves left, and I see what she’s molding. It’s the face of an elephant. So far, half the face of an elephant. Each intricate feature of the elephant’s face from wrinkle to rough, weatherworn skin is crafted. Such that she, the elephant, is real. She has depth and character. I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s in the depth and breadth of the elephant’s half face that I finally see Sabita without the filter I’ve been using all this time. I see that she’s more than her physical beauty, that she’s more than Jon’s girlfriend. She’s an artist. She’s a full person.

  I give Sabita a small wave and back out of the room. She’s supposed to meet me and Jon on the lacrosse field in fifteen minutes to drive home for dinner. I plop down on the floor in the hall and grab my ten-pound history book. I’ll wait for her here.

  We walk to the field together, and I find myself telling her about the new gym and swimming.

  “Wow, Ade. That is so cool. I’m so happy for you.” And she genuinely is happy for me.

  I sigh because I get it. Sabita is as beautiful as she is radiant. She’s warm in the way kindness and compassion are warm, enveloping. She’s light in the way excitement and laughter are light. She’s cute in the way a child experiences the world as new. And I realize that perhaps my fascination with her borders the crush line, but mostly I just want to be a little more like her. A little more childlike and open. I want to be. A little more beautiful. A little more radiant.

  And I can be.

  I am.

  Mom, or is it Dad?

  I have to go through my dad’s closet to get into the attic. In the past we haven’t been allowed up here. Probably more a safety issue than a privacy issue. At least I hope that’s the case, because I’m already crawling through pink insulation. I wonder if it’s bad to inhale this stuff.

  None of the boxes are labeled, and it takes me twenty minutes to find the clothes. I knew we had some boxes, but I had no idea my dad or mom saved every last piece of baby garment we ever wore. So many footie pajamas.

  I pull matching pajamas out of the box, one blue, one pink. Terry cloth. I find T-shirts and shorts, mini one-piece body suits. I smile, thinking of a childhood in these clothes with an alive mom.

  Marissa won’t have to spend much on clothing, at least for the first few years.

  I decide to keep the terry cloth footies because they’ve been so well loved. And Jon and I must’ve been so well loved in them.

  I discover the USB sticks inside a shoebox inside another box. Despite my mom’s aversion to labeling, the USB sticks each have a small sticky note in my mom’s handwriting taped to the outside that reads Family photos. The sticks are buried under a few random prints. In one of the prints, my mom stands in the woods, having found the perfect patch of light. I stare at the picture for a long time, wishing I could jump inside it. My mom is love embodied—it’s in the way she smiles at the camera, or whoever’s taking the picture.

  I throw the USB sticks and a stack of prints inside one of the big boxes of baby clothes, and the plan forms as I climb down the ladder.

  It takes me three hours to pick out the pictures. I
need the perfect balance. Some of all of us. Some of just her and Dad. Some of just her and Jon, just her and me. Just Dad and Jon, just Dad and me. I choose several prints from the pile, and more off the USB. I’ll need ten frames for all the prints.

  I love the one of just her. She’s under a tree, and the camera is zoomed in on her face, the yellowing autumn aspen leaves blurred in the background. Her beautiful, youthful, healthy face. It’s a face with so much ahead of it. So much possibility. I’d like to believe she did live, if not a full life, then full moments, full days beyond when this picture was taken. I have to believe it. Otherwise what a waste.

  I’m lucky. The project costs me seventy-five dollars total, and it’s all the cash I have. I need to babysit again.

  I hang framed pictures on the wall where the holes are. I prop them on the mantel near the fireplace. And I keep the one of just mom. It’s on my desk.

  I miss my dad on Saturday after the pictures are hung. I work my first shift at the gym, and then Marissa comes over to watch a movie in the basement, where we crash. I wake up early, leaving Marissa downstairs. She’s been sleeping a lot.

  I creep up the stairs, afraid all of my pictures will have been taken down.

  I smell the deep smoke of morning coffee, hear the glub-glub of our ancient Mr. Coffee brewer. Dad is sitting at the kitchen table, his hands wrapped around his mug. SUPER DAD. The mug from which he drinks his coffee religiously. He’s staring at the family collage I made and hung on the wall in the breakfast nook. Dad and Mom at their wedding, a family shot at Disneyland, and one of us camping.

  I stand motionless next to the kitchen counter. My dad’s back is turned as he pours himself a cup of fresh coffee.

  His back still to me, having sensed my presence, he says, “Did you hang the photographs, Aden?” He sounds brusque, on the brink of angry.

  “I did.” I stand there in my skin, wishing he would turn around and face me, face it. “You sound mad.”

  He puts both hands on the counter, leaning over the steaming cup of coffee, a pose that makes his body look so heavy. Still, he refuses to look at me.

  “I was.”

  “Mad?”

  He angles his body, raises his head, our eyes meet—two faces that look alike. “After ten years, it still hurts to see her face without warning.” The tears well in him, a tear for each eye.

  My own eyes widen.

  I consider saying I’m sorry because I don’t want to cause him any more pain, but I think better of it. It’s time to be done protecting each other. The way he imagines he protects me from his anguish, the way I avoid talking about her and keep the cycle going. So, instead of I’m sorry, I say, “I miss her too.”

  And I stand in the kitchen with my dad while he deals with the discomfort of our collective grief.

  He speaks first. “Your mom made us go on that trip.” He taps the photo from Disneyland. “I’m pretty sure she gave me an ultimatum; she wanted to take the two of you so badly. She wasn’t always a saint, your mom. She was outspoken and bossy. My God, she was bossy.” He takes a drink of steaming coffee, and I stay as still as possible, not moving a muscle for fear of breaking this spell.

  “So we walk in the gates and there’s Belle from Beauty and the Beast standing right there. Jon was four. But he’d seen the movie. He was so wildly excited he literally started running circles around Belle. And your jaw. It was on the floor. At the sight of you two, so happy, so innocently and just wildly happy and excited, your mom just lost it. She started laughing and crying. Happy tears.

  “Nothing made us happier than you and Jon. Nothing. We shared a whole world, your mom and I. And I’m not saying we stayed together because of you two. I’m saying we stayed in love because of you two.”

  That’s the most I’ve ever heard my dad speak about my mom, and momentarily, I’m a little girl listening to my dad tell a deeply satisfying story. Hearing about my mom fills me.

  My dad grunts his goodbye and leaves the kitchen.

  I quietly pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down so I can stare at the photographs of my young mom. This time, the pictures stay.

  Tate

  He’s been making a show of his relationship with Maggie lately. Lots of hallway handholds and kissing. The kissing is still a swift and hard punch in the gut. But maybe they’ve always been this way and I’m just noticing more. I hate noticing, because I’m trying so hard not to love him. I wonder how he can know so much of me, hold so much of me, without loving me enough to be with me? Maybe he just loves Maggie more. If I think about it too long, I feel unlovable. But I’ve already resolved to embody beauty. So I am washing feelings of unlove away every time they assault me, letting them roll over, around, and off of me.

  I suck in a breath because I have to pass them as a couple to get to my next class. And I’ll be damned if TateandMaggie will make me late.

  “Ade.” It’s Tate saying my name. I half turn and keep walking forward. I don’t want to talk to him, and where I used to love the sound of his voice saying Ade with a loving familiarity, today it makes me want to kick him. Where does he get off?

  “Hey, Tate,” I say. Maybe that’s enough. Just a hi in the hallway.

  I’m walking fast, and it takes Tate all of two giant steps before he’s in stride with me, Maggie heading in the opposite direction to class.

  “What’s up?” The way he says it makes me feel pathetic. It’s laced with pity and condescending gentleness. It’s been three weeks since our night together. I’ve been making up excuses as to why I can’t hang out. Even though every text, every invasion of space when he walks by my desk or smiles brightly, says he expects me to act the same with him. As though we weren’t recklessly in love, if only for one night.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Not nothing,” he says.

  He thinks he can call me on my evasion of him. Like if he makes our night together and me loving him mine alone, then we can still be in spite of it. Like we’ve been all this time. But I know we can’t be. Because I can’t be. I can’t be part of his we. The we that isn’t enough, that leaves me feeling helpless and barely loved and ultimately cheap. No. I can’t be part of Tate’s we.

  “Please, Ade. Come to Ike’s with me.” The way he says it. Come to Ike’s with me. It pulls on me because all I want to do, body and soul, is be with him, and he can’t or won’t be with me. Yes. I could go to Ike’s with him. And pretend nothing ever happened. Pretend we haven’t kissed. Pretend I don’t love him and he doesn’t know, and we could just be like that together for who knows how long. Even though he holds my hand and strokes my hair every time we’re alone. Even though he leans into me, his body drawn to mine because our souls just get each other. Even though we let go together one night. I can’t pretend that I’m okay with him because I can’t be as we were . . . something more than friends, something less than lovers. It costs too much.

  I have to stop.

  “I can’t, Tate.” For a split second I think I see hurt in his eyes, but I can’t acknowledge it, let alone embrace it or let it be my responsibility.

  “I have swimming.”

  But that’s not entirely honest.

  “Swimming?”

  The way he says it. As though he has any right to be surprised about the newness I’ve brought into my life.

  “Yeah, and I really have to go because I’m, like, five minutes late for class now.”

  The bobby pins securing the yarmulke to his hair glint under the light.

  “Maybe tomorrow?”

  His persistence is alarming, and again I wonder why. Or how. How can he act like he hasn’t inhaled me and kissed me and loved me? How can he act like I haven’t poured myself into loving him? How can he take so much from me and then go back to Maggie?

  “Why? I mean, how can I?”

  “What do you mean why or how?” he says. “You just do. You come to Ike’s with me.”

  He can’t be honest. With me. With himself. Or if he is being honest, then I can�
�t meet him at Ike’s or wherever the hell else he is, because it will never be that simple for me.

  “I can’t pretend that we didn’t make out, Tate. I can’t pretend that I don’t want more every time you hold my hand or play with my hair. Every time we make eye contact or share some inside joke. I can’t just let that slide like it doesn’t mean more to me than friendship. I just can’t be that person for you. It’s like . . . you’re leading me on or something. And, it just . . . It takes too much out of me.” The truth is painful and liberating all at once, a rush. Because if I don’t start saying my truth aloud, if I don’t start living it, I will burn from the inside out, ashes left in my wake.

  He stops in his tracks, and I move forward. Maybe he’s shocked or hurt or both. But I have to keep walking. I’m late.

  Marissa

  Two months later.

  I hand Marissa two sticks of green spearmint gum. She unwraps both sticks and shoves them into her mouth with a moan. She hasn’t stopped complaining about the nausea for the last two weeks. She’s been borrowing clothes from me. I’m trying not to let the clothes-borrowing mess with my body image, because before the pregnancy Marissa was in a lot of size zeros. And she can’t afford a whole new maternity wardrobe. My tunics are particularly cute with her little bump poking out of her unbuttoned jeans.

  Marissa tosses a magazine onto the end table.

  “I hate kids,” she says after watching a pregnant mom drag her screaming toddler back to the examination room.

  “Wow,” I say. “That’s comforting to hear from a future mother.”

  “I didn’t say I’d hate my own. But definitely other people’s brats. Can’t stand ’em.”