Aftercare Instructions

by Bonnie Pipkin

  “Vanessa, you need to go.”

  “Yeah, I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what to say to you. You clearly hate me. I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, you don’t understand?” I snap back at her. “You don’t understand why I might not want to be friends with someone who systematically dismantled our friendship so that she could get her hands on my boyfriend? Was that your plan when you told everyone about my dad?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I figured it out. I figured out why you told.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You told about my dad overdosing so Mrs. Sage wouldn’t approve of the relationship. So she’d have something real to hold on to. A real reason to hate me. She would never let her son be with a girl who comes from a family like mine, right? A perfect way to break us up.”

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “What?”

  “He doesn’t want me. He never did. He never will. I’ve hated you for so long for getting the only thing I wanted. The only thing I’m guilty of is being jealous. And today I acted stupid. I wanted you to know what it felt like when I found out about you guys. Remember that? In the library? My heart exploded that day. And you knew it. You knew it.”

  Vanessa is crying.

  “I didn’t dismantle our friendship, Genesis! You ditched me when Rose came around,” Vanessa says. “And Genesis, I told because I was worried about you. I told because they asked me why you were missing so much school. They called me in. They acted like they already knew. I was scared shitless. And I was mostly scared for you. That’s it.”

  I’m silent.

  We look at each other, or the space between us, I’m not sure which, and I say, “Why did you say we’d never make it anyway?”

  “You and Peter?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Do you think you will?”

  I did think. I totally did think we’d make it. I never thought about life with anyone else but him.

  “You know he loves you.”

  Do I? Does love mean disappearing?

  “He hasn’t jumped into another relationship. With me. With anyone. He mostly seems confused right now. And a little lost. Which is so not Peter.”

  “Do you know why we broke up?” I have no idea why I’m asking this right now. Except as a hope for a small release. Of pressure. Of everything.

  “I mean, it seems like you just grew apart.”

  I shake my head.

  “It was something more?”

  “It was.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  I shake my head. But I kind of do. But I know I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to him.

  “You don’t have to. But you can.”

  She touches my shoulder, and I look down at our feet.

  “That’s really why you told?”

  She drops her hand, and turns to walk down the path without answering. I cross my arms, and watch Vanessa shrink away.

  When I get back in the house, my mom has moved onto the couch in the living room.

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  She shows me her saddest smile. One that means so many things. She is the master of the sad smile.

  “You’ve had to deal with so much, Gen.”

  “I’ve done all right, though, haven’t I?”

  “You’ve done more than all right. You don’t need me.”

  “I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

  “It’s true. You’ve been taking perfectly good care of yourself since…” She pastes the sad smile back on her face instead of finishing her sentence.

  “Will you tell me if you need anything, Mom?”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask that of me. That’s what I should be asking you.”

  I’ve dreamed of this conversation. I swear I have. I swear I’ve had the dream that my mom says that exact thing, and all of a sudden my dad is back and Ally is here, and we’re operating like a goddamn normal family with real smiles that come from love, not from pain.

  And then I have to ask her: “Do you ever … feel him? Like, feel him here?”

  Her eyes fill up, and her face drops.

  I listen to her breathing.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I kiss her forehead and smell where her hair meets her skin. Oil of Olay sunscreen face lotion and Pantene two-in-one. She’s smelled like these two things for as long as I can remember. I could pick these scents out of a blind smell test, I know it.

  “One day things will be normal, right?” I ask her.

  “I’m working on it.”

  I nod so I won’t cry, and head to my room.

  I text Rose to tell her about Vanessa. She immediately calls, but I send it to voice mail.

  Me: Can we talk in the morning?

  Rose: I’ll come over.

  Me: Sounds perfect.

  Rose: Are you okay?

  Everyone always wants to know if I’m okay. I just don’t know.

  I just don’t know.

  But somehow the world keeps spinning. Spinning spinning spinning.

  ACT II

  SCENE 8

  (This scene takes place in the Morning Thunder Café, again. Focus is on GENESIS and ROSE in a booth.)

  ROSE

  I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! You popped Peter Sage’s cherry! It’s an earthly miracle!

  GENESIS

  Shhhh! Rose! Shut up!

  ROSE

  I can’t! You’ve just shaken the entire moral order of the world to its core. You’ve just ripped poor Peter Sage from the Garden of Eden. You are Point Shelley’s Eve. You are …

  GENESIS

  Rose, please. Relax.

  ROSE

  Holy shit! You lost your virginity too!

  GENESIS

  Do you want to hear about this or what?

  (SERVER comes by with cheese fries and Cokes.)

  ROSE

  Yes! Every detail!

  GENESIS

  It was perfect.

  ROSE

  Oh God. Of course it was.

  GENESIS

  He got keys to Cal’s family beach house.

  ROSE

  I might throw up.

  GENESIS

  Candles and everything. We were, like, playing house all weekend. Cooking and sitting by the fire and well, you know …

  ROSE

  Did you do it more than once?

  GENESIS

  So many times!

  (They laugh.)

  ROSE

  That’s my girl.

  (Beat)

  What did your mom do all weekend?

  GENESIS

  Aunt Kayla came over.

  (They eat.)

  I love him, Rose.

  ROSE

  I know you do. It’s cute. Disgusting too. But cute.

  GENESIS

  I think we’re going to be together forever.

  ROSE

  That’s because you’re a girl who just got laid all weekend. We’ll see.

  GENESIS

  We’ll see. But I could feel it, you know? Kind of like it was our house in the future. And that’s what it will be like with us.

  ROSE

  I have never heard you talk like this.

  GENESIS

  I want you to be in love too.

  ROSE

  Who, me? Bah. I don’t need it.

  GENESIS

  We all do.

  ROSE

  I have you. I don’t need a boyfriend.

  GENESIS

  You’ll find it.

  ROSE

  We’ll see.

  GENESIS

  We’ll see.

  (WILL FONTAINE enters and acknowledges both girls on his way by. ROSE reacts with disgust. GENESIS is friendly.)

  (Lights fade.)

  SUPPORT GROUPS ARE AVAILABLE

  The smell of melting butter drifts through the house. I know it’s not my mother with butter in a pan, so it mu
st be Rose in the kitchen. Which is slightly frightening. But when I get there, I see eggs and cheese and herbs, and bread sitting in the toaster, ready to be pushed in.

  “What’s all this?”

  She spins around from looking at a recipe in her phone.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I’m dying to hear about Vanessa.”

  “So you brought breakfast?”

  “I decided to make a frittata.”

  “A what?”

  “A frittata. It’s like a quiche without crust.”

  I peek over her shoulder and see a bit of eggshell in the batter. I dip my finger in to get it out.

  “You forgot something.”

  “And he thought he could teach me to crack an egg open with one hand.”

  “He?”

  Rose blushes. When she does, I wipe the shell piece onto her nose, then duck under her swat.

  “Let me show you what I’ve learned.”

  “Considering the last time we ate your cooking, it was burnt oatmeal, I’m going to start praying now.”

  “Peter would be so proud.”

  And then I sink a little.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, abandoning the eggy goop and turning off the flame on the stove. “Too soon.”

  I step backward and steady myself on the counter. “No, it’s fine. It’s okay.”

  This is one of those times when okay doesn’t mean anything but Let’s drop it.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, so call me crazy, but I don’t know how to use your coffee maker.”

  “And you’re making a crustless quiche?”

  “Hey! That’s sophisticated technology.”

  I put the coffee on, and sit at the kitchen table to watch Rose sweat her way through the frittata recipe.

  Rose picks another little piece of shell out of her whisked eggs. “So, what about Vanessa last night?”

  Here we go. And there isn’t even any caffeine in her blood yet.

  “Dish.”

  I tell her about the conversation. About how Vanessa knew about the rumor of their getting together, and even though it wasn’t true, she wanted to watch my reaction. Then about how she told the school about my dad and home situation because she was worried about me. Not for any malicious reason. I skip the part about her saying I ditched her for Rose.

  “And you believed her?”

  “I did. I really did. I almost told her about the abortion too.”

  “Whoa.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you think she wants to be friends again?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “But they’re not together.”

  “No.”

  Rose pours the coffee into two mugs.

  “Are you still feeling sick?”

  Am I? Body check. I wasn’t spotting when I went to the bathroom, and I actually feel relatively normal. Maybe I’m through it. Maybe my body recovered pretty quickly.

  Now for the heart.

  “Do you miss him?”

  Him. I miss him. I really do. Even with someone starting to fill up the missing space, I still wonder where he is and what he’s doing. “Yeah.”

  Rose puts her frittata in the oven and brings the coffee to the table. I know she wants to ask me about Seth. She circles around it with grace, but I can see the curiosity in her eyes. I wonder if I can dodge the questions. I wonder if I can escape to the city this afternoon without telling her. Not that I won’t; I just don’t want to yet. I don’t want that bubble to burst.

  “Gen, what are you doing tonight?”

  Busted. “Nothing planned.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Why good?”

  “Maybe we can hang out.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “If I don’t get too preoccupied,” she says with a wink.

  “Ew, gross. Can I remind you you’re talking about Will Fontaine?”

  “He’s taking me roller skating. That’s too ridiculous and cute.”

  “You are.”

  As the timer on the oven goes off, Rose gets a text from Will that he wants to meet her early. She looks from her phone to the frittata to me to the phone.

  “Oh, Rose, just go.”

  “But breakfast!”

  “Since when do you eat breakfast?”

  “True.” She gathers her stuff, then comes to hug me good-bye. “Seriously, maybe we can all hang later.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say again, knowing that she’s just trying to be nice. She’ll get caught up in Fontaine-land, and my route to the city (and Seth) will be clear and easy. “Bye, lovebird.”

  “Shush up,” she says, and runs out the door.

  My phone buzzes.

  Seth: Results today!

  All this back and forth to the city is making me a little bit dizzy. And results makes it sound so medical. I haven’t much liked any of the results I’ve discovered lately. Especially the two pink lines. But these are results for an audition. I auditioned for an off-Broadway show yesterday. Isn’t that what happened?

  Seth: Meet me earlier and go together?

  Genesis: Okay. Where?

  Seth: Coffee shop on Bowery and 2nd. Forget the name. 4pm?

  Genesis: See you there.

  I peek into my mom’s room. She’s reading.

  “There’s frittata that Rose made, and coffee in the pot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You okay?”

  Mom nods. “Love you, Gen Gen.”

  She hasn’t called me that in forever. We look at each other, but I know the conversation isn’t going any further. We’re not going to talk about last night. We’re not going to talk about how I broke up with my boyfriend and had an abortion and tried out for a play in the city. I won’t tell her that sometimes if you open yourself up a little bit, someone else might surprise you, even boys with shaggy hair and gigantic smiles, so instead I just say:

  “Love you too.”

  * * *

  Across the aisle from me on the bus, a man has fallen asleep with his mouth open, holding his glasses against his chest. I can see the silver fillings in the backs of his teeth. Cool air trickles through the window, into the overheated vessel.

  I almost text Delilah, but just can’t bring myself to.

  We reach Port Authority, and the castaway passengers stir. Rose told me once when she went to Puerto Rico everyone cheered when they landed. These droopy people in the bus from coastal New Jersey don’t seem too thrilled to reach Manhattan. No cheering.

  By the time I navigate Port Authority and the subway system to the coffee shop where Seth wants to meet, it’s 3:37 p.m. Just a little bit early. The sky is overcast, a cool gray blanket over the city. People seem to move extra slowly today. Like the air is thick and hard to break through.

  I order an Earl Grey tea before Seth gets there, and add milk and honey. The first sip burns my tongue, making my mouth all fuzzy. I let the tea sit, and look through my phone to pass the time. Delilah’s texts from Wednesday start with a very simple looking for u and then progress to FUCKING ANSWER ME!

  I put the phone down next to the tea that is too hot to drink. My dad told me when I was a kid that one day he’d take me to Paris. That I wouldn’t believe the food and the people and the music and the underground theater. I was always confused by that word, underground, and I imagined a group of people who burrowed into the ground and made worlds full of music and all the people’s skin turned green like they were in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.

  Now I guess I’m on my way to an underground theater. Though it’s upstairs at a bar.

  It’s 3:54 p.m. The door chimes every time it opens, but so far no Seth. I wonder if he’s nervous. I wonder what will happen if he makes it in and I don’t. Or the other way around. I try to imagine what it will be like to come into the city at night with all the green underground people and make a play with them. I wonder what Casper is like as a director. I wonder why everyone says he’s so crazy when at the audition
he barely even spoke. Just watched from the shadows. And dismissed people too quickly. And probably never noticed me because I’m just a kid trying to sneak into their world. Trying to find their portal.

  The bell on the door chimes again a few minutes later and in walks Fire Lady. Today she wears solid turquoise from top to bottom, not the solid gray of yesterday. Her lipstick is bright magenta and she enters the café like a cheetah. I duck down into my seat because I don’t really want her to see me. But she is a big cat, and stalks me right away. She doesn’t say hello.

  “You were at the audition yesterday.”

  That’s not a question. So I don’t say anything. But I think I kind of nod. I look at her eyes, which look violet to me. She has a slight German accent. But I might be imagining that.

  “You will go to look at the results at five o’clock.”

  Again, not a question. And again, this word: results. I can’t help but feel I’m learning how many months I have to live.

  Maybe, in a way, that’s not so far off.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  I’m not kidding. She actually said that. I choke out, “No.”

  “Good. I have the list here if you want to see it.”

  Maybe she thinks I should look to save myself the embarrassment of finding out I didn’t make it in front of everyone else.

  The door chimes again. I look up expecting Seth, but no. Phone says 4:07. He’s late.

  But now the choice. Do I look? Or do I wait for Seth so we can look together? I’m an impostor. I shouldn’t even be doing this. This is his thing, not mine. I should look at the list and get out of here before he arrives. Or actually I shouldn’t look. I should just go. Pulse. Pump. Breathe. The answer is right in front of me. Right in her hand. Seth is late. Maybe it’s okay to look. I can better prepare myself for his reaction.

  But I’m stuck.

  Shipwrecked.

  And why is my tea still too hot to drink?

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Suit yourself,” she says, and clicks her tongue. “Genesis Johnson.”

  She remembers my full name. I look back and forth from my tea to the paper in her hand to the chiming door to my phone to the tea to the paper to the chiming door to my phone.

  “How old are you now?”

  Shit. What did I say on my form? “Nineteen.”

  “It hasn’t been that much time.”

  “Excuse me?” Oh no. Did I blow it by lying?