The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  You said I broke your heart after what I did. And I would take it back if I could. I’d be so much more careful with you. People always say, “You can’t undo the past.” It’s one of those expressions you hear so often that the words lose meaning. But it’s true. You can’t undo the past, and the minutes tick by and even the things that deserve to stay, especially those, can’t be held forever, even in hands more careful than mine. I feel it in my chest, deep and painful, this truth, a terrible truth—time goes forward and things are left behind. There’s no way around it, Janssen, and my problem is that I stepped to the other side of adulthood and realized that fact. I turned my tassel to the other side of my cap, and there it was, this truth I never felt before. Loss is the price we pay for life.

  How are we humans supposed to go around with that knowledge? And can I just say that, unfairly or not (okay, unfairly), you are making it worse? You don’t admit that you’re interested in Alyssa. Instead you answer my question about her with two lines. I’ve read them a hundred times. Maybe we should see other people. You can’t expect me to put my life on hold.

  Jesus, Janssen. Am I standing here at the fucking Sea-Tac Airport?

  Love always,

  Cricket

  chapter

  twenty

  “I can’t keep my life on hold,” I said.

  “What?” Ash said.

  “I can’t. I can’t either.”

  “Are you okay, Cricket?” Everyone was asking me that lately. I was asking me that. Ash’s hands were shoved down into that sweatshirt I had worn. His head was tilted sideways in question. The room was still dark. I could see his face in the light from the moon. He sat down on the edge of my bed, shoved my pillow aside. It seemed intimate, touching my pillow. Like touching me, or my most private clothing. I was territorial about my pillow usually. It was one of my weird things. When Ben or Mom was in my room, I’d hate it when they’d fold my pillow in half and lie on it.

  He took my hands. Jupiter was sniffing his pant legs. He was pulling me toward him, but she was in the way, and he gave her a little push with the side of his foot.

  “Hey,” I said. “Don’t.” We all had to get Jupiter out of the way sometimes. But a foot seemed disrespectful.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. “Just, come over here.”

  I sat down next to him. I really liked how he smelled. You could believe in those things you read about, smell and attraction, some whatever-something we give off, a particular whatever-something that attracts you specifically. Maybe we had our own version of a dog’s nose without even realizing it.

  “You smell so good,” I said.

  “Thank you.” It sounded formal. And he had his hands in his lap, folded like a schoolboy hoping to be noticed for his good behavior. And he didn’t even realize how he looked—sweet, and it made me laugh. I forgot all my heart turbulence and just laughed. “What?” he asked. He was grinning, ready to get whatever joke I had to offer.

  “You,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m funny, am I?” He held his arms up, werewolf, monster-movie arms, ready to tickle.

  I set my mouth into a serious line. “Not funny,” I said. “Not the least bit funny. Hey. You weren’t at dinner tonight.”

  “I know. It’s stupid. But I was thinking about how to tell you something. Did you get my message?”

  “I did. I guess I was thinking about how to tell you something too.”

  “There’s all this chemistry between us …”

  “I know.”

  “I wanted to tell you … I’m not the kind of guy that does casual hookups. I don’t want you to think that. I want you to know I don’t just go doing this all the time.” He leaned in close to me. I could feel his breath on my face. “Forget what I said about waiting to kiss you, okay? Because I can’t think about anything else.”

  “Wai—” I said, but he shut me up. His mouth was on mine, and his lips were warm and he tasted like fading pepper mint. He held my face in his hands, held it hard, and it wasn’t something that Janssen did really, and his tongue was different, the kiss itself was, but it was good, and I felt myself folding into it, and it would have been so easy to relax and love this. It was dark, and darkness could make you feel like you were anyone. A different kiss—even as I was kissing I thought this, and I was shoved up then against a hard truth—there were a thousand different kisses out there to experience, different hands, different moments with different people. You could cut the strings to that hot-air balloon and could see and feel more than you would even guess from the ground.

  I pulled away. “Wow,” he said. His brown eyes were holding mine. “I was nervous. About kissing you. I wanted to tell you—I’ve only had one serious girlfriend…. Let’s do that again.”

  I started to speak. The bad thing was, I almost called him Janssen. The name sat right there in my mouth. It almost slipped out. I stopped myself in time, but I had a crazy moment of hunting around in my head for his name. If not Janssen, who? Nothing was coming to me.

  “Ash,” I said. Thank God, there it was. “I want to. I do. I really like you. Really like. But—”

  “Oh, I hate buts.” He groaned and put his hands to his head in mock pain. “No … No buts.”

  “I’m in this strange place right now. I’ve only had one boyfriend. For years. And now we’re … I don’t know what we’re …”

  “Taking a break?” Ash said.

  “Taking a break,” I agreed. It was as good as anything.

  “That’s not a bad ‘but’,” he said. He looked crushed, though.

  I had hurt Janssen that day. I had done a terrible thing. I’d never been disloyal, though. I’d never done what I just did. I could permanently damage us, and some great big hand, a huge Hand of the Future, slapped me hard.

  “I need to get things sorted out before I’m with any-one. I’m so sorry. I don’t go around doing this either. This, you—confusing.”

  Ash stood up. “I think I’m going to hope that you’re a fast sorter outer.” He smiled. I thought it was really brave of him to pull that smile off. He took a pinch of my shirt and pulled a little, playfully. “So. This is awkward.”

  “God, it is. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” He opened my door.

  “Okay.”

  He shut it behind him. My chest hurt. I felt awful. I had that feeling that sometimes sits oddly around you. Where am I, and how did I get here? Of course, I knew how I got there. I brought myself right to this place, to see what it would look like. The view always seems like it will be better at the edge.

  In a book, in a movie or something, I would now have had some great moment of truth. A wrong kiss, which would send me back to Janssen. A right kiss, which would send me away. Or Ash would suddenly reveal himself to be a bad guy, making my path clear. The thing he did with his foot with Jupiter would have huge meaning. But it wasn’t that simple. It’s not how it happened in my own life.

  In my own life two truths coexisted, and that seems to be how it goes. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that. There were a thousand kisses out there, but there was also the one that mattered. There was the one that mattered, and also the one that never had a chance.

  It was the day before my mother’s wedding, a day to believe in love. The clouds lazed around as if it were a Sunday morning and they were wearing cloud pajamas. Soon they would drift off with better things to do, you could tell. I felt two truths inside of me, but under that roof there were too many truths to count, and it seemed that Jupiter and Cruiser were the only ones that had worked out their relationship. Things were very clear between them. She was smaller, she was older, but she was still the boss, something they both understood without long talks and arguments and history. I bit your ass. We know where we stand. End of story.

  “Let’s go outside,” I said to Jupiter. She tilted her head at the word. Wouldn’t it be freeing to be able to ignore all the words that weren’t important, like dogs did? Boring stories, painful ones, al
l those hurtful comments people flung your way—the rhythms and tones would wash over you like waves until you heard only what you needed to: walk, treat, good girl. You’d only have to listen for your own name, and the few things that mattered.

  “Outside, then breakfast.” She put her paws up on my knees. “You hate those stairs. I’ll carry you. Don’t even have to ask.”

  I tucked my phone into my jeans. Oscar had quit calling. I needed to go see those guys. They were my best friends, even if Oscar had turned into my stalker and Gavin had brought Hailey to the geek dark side of technology and junk food. Natalie was coming that day too. It would be good to have her here, to have all of us together again. I loved familiar.

  I looked down at Rabbit, Jupiter’s familiar, and decided to leave him there. “You’re okay without him, right?” I asked. She licked the side of my face. “Oh, guck,” I said. “You goof. Silly girl.”

  I could hear voices downstairs already. We’d all have a day to ourselves, but the rehearsal (if you could call it that) and the rehearsal dinner would be that night. My stomach fell at the thought, though I don’t know what my problem was. It wasn’t me getting married. Still, I had that lurch of nerves you get when the something big that had been off in the distance is now in front of you.

  “Do you remember how you used to always bring us something when we came back home?” I asked Jupiter quietly. “You’d run and get your blankie or Rabbit or some chew toy, and you’d greet us with it, and drop it at our feet?” She was riding down the stairs, under my arm. “You were always enough by yourself, you know. We never needed anything else.”

  We almost bumped into George at the bottom of the stairs. He was rifling through the pockets of his jacket, which had been tossed over the banister. “Headache tablets,” he said. His accent reminded me of the plucking of banjo strings.

  “Oh no, again? What happened, George?”

  “Fucking raccoons. They are a curse. I sleep, and then there they go. Arthur says ignore it. He says, Go back to sleep. How can you ignore it, I want to know. It is worse than cats fighting.”

  Well, of course I heard it. Go back to sleep. This could go two ways, right? An after-the-fact piece of advice, or a right-there-in-your-own-bed statement. God! Ben couldn’t be right, could he? I mean, we never did get the whole story about George and Grandpa, how and why they were friends. No. No! I was born after Gram and Grandpa had divorced, but they’d been married for nearly thirty years. We’d known two girlfriends of his—the real estate agent with blond hair and manicured nails, who smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, and the thin, nervous golf pro. We met her once when they all went to my fifth-grade play. Gram had said, Adult anorexic, when they got into the car to go home. She’s an athlete, she’s thin, my mother said. She had practice keeping parents separate too.

  When George went into the kitchen, I stuck my hand into his jacket pocket. I don’t know why I did it. I was hoping to find some proof, maybe. But all I felt were several loose coins and the smooth, thin wood of a few golf tees. Even my hand felt guilty. My brother was an idiot.

  My mother sat at the table, wearing her Chinese robe with the dragon on the back. Her hair was all flat, and her face looked blank without her makeup. Either she was getting really comfortable here, or she’d stopped caring. Rebecca sat across from her, and they both had their hands around their cups and were leaning forward in conversation.

  “It’s a damn shame, but ‘safe’ is just a sweet dream,” Rebecca said.

  “Nooooo.” Mom groaned.

  “Love, our shaky triumph over uncertainty.” Rebecca sipped her coffee. “‘Shaky’, key word.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one,” Mom said. “You sure we should do the ceremony outside, not in?”

  “Absolutely.” Rebecca nodded.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “Dog’s gotta go out.”

  “Go right ahead,” Rebecca said.

  On my way out through the kitchen door, I saw a different spot of grass, ha, in an ashtray on the kitchen windowsill. I don’t have any experience with the stuff, but I was somehow surprised by the ashtray. It looked 1950s formal. Less Age of Aquarius or the guys in the back parking lot at school, and more martinis and boofed-out hair.

  And then, right there, looking at that crinkled stub, something hit me. That pathetic little joint spoke to me. I’d never respected the act of doing drugs. It felt like a cop-out. And I still didn’t respect it, but all at once I got it. We used anything we could to protect ourselves against fear, against the ways life felt too big. We put God in front of terrifying things, and we knocked three times, and we took drugs and shopped too much and obsessed about food or success, so that the scary stuff would look farther away than it was. We worried, because maybe if we worried enough, it would act like a spell of safety. All those things, superstitions and addictions and anxiety, they were all about hiding from what scared the shit out of us.

  And, say it, Cricket. Be honest: a relationship. A relationship could be a place to hide too.

  I set Jupiter down, and she squatted on her narrow back legs. Her legs wobbled, I noticed.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” I asked, but she averted her eyes. She was quite private when peeing, and I usually tried not to look, out of respect. When she finished, she did her usual pride-restoring act, the vigorous back kick of dirt, but even that was done slowly.

  We went back in. Jupiter gave Cruiser’s empty bowl a lick. I gave her a few biscuits to tide her over, and she crunched away. “Aunt Hannah is coming today,” my mother said. “My sis,” she said to Rebecca. “God, I can’t wait to see—”

  She was interrupted by a pounding on the front door, and a deep voice, shouting, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

  “Yes, okay!” Rebecca hustled out. Her caftan caught on a chair and knocked it over. Mom stood quickly and righted it. I could see George out on the deck, watching the sea.

  “Look what’s here!” Rebecca said.

  “This thing’s a bitch. Watch out.”

  “Oh!” My mother gasped.

  “Where do you want it? Yi, yi, yi, gotta set her down.”

  It was a man. In jeans and a sloppy T-shirt, a rough beard. He had a red bandana in his dark hair. Huge muscles. No wonder he could carry that thing himself. “Beautiful as the bride,” he said. He had the rough voice of a smoker.

  The cake. Mom’s wedding cake. And as he set it down, slid it from his palms onto the table, I could barely hear their words anymore. He was talking to Mom and Rebecca and they were exchanging stuff, receipts, money, whatever, and then he left, the unlikely baker, and Rebecca was walking him back to the door and saying something to him. But I couldn’t even make out their words—it all felt underwater. Because there was this beautiful, huge white cake, three layers of roses and swirls and new life starting, and my heart was in my throat and tears gathered in my eyes before I could stop them.

  “Honey?” my mother said.

  “I—” The word barely escaped.

  “Oh, sweetie.” She came and put her arms around me. I started to cry. If I had to explain why even now I couldn’t. It was all just too big.

  “I’m sorry, it’s stupid …”

  “It’s change,” my mother said. She stroked my hair.

  I sniffed into her shoulder. And then I pulled away and looked at her, and saw that she had tears in her eyes too. “I thought it was just me,” I said.

  “How, oh how could that be? You leaving, and—” She waved her hand all around. “This. So much happiness. So much left behind.”

  “The cake and everything …”

  “It’s beginning now,” Mom said.

  I nodded. I sniffed hard. I wiped my eyes, but the tears kept streaming. “I’m happy,” I said. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

  “I know. It’s not that.”

  Well, of course my stupid brother had to walk in then. But he knew how to handle us. “Oh, great. A blubber party,” he said. “What’s the matter, guys? Did they get t
he cake color wrong?”

  “Shut up, idiot,” I cried.

  “Come here, you,” my mother said.

  And he did. He reached his arms around us both, and we reached our arms around each other.

  “I love you guys,” Mom said.

  “I love you too,” I said.

  Ben’s voice was hard to hear, spoken into Mom’s shoulder. “Love you too,” he muttered. He wasn’t much for mushy stuff.

  I would miss this so much. These people. The eighteen years before now. My own bed, in my own room. Waking up every day knowing that I was home.

  “Frosting roses,” Mom said. We all looked at that cake. She took my hand and then Ben’s. She held each up and gave our hands a kiss. “My babies,” she said.

  “I never knew you could get a bra in that color,” Natalie said.

  “I know. Right?”

  “I’m stuffed,” Natalie said. We headed out of Butch’s Harbor Bar restaurant, leaving behind the smell of frying burgers and onions and the ghosts of cigarettes past. We pushed the door open into the sun. I was glad the girlfriend contingent had arrived. My Aunt Hannah had come that morning too. I saw her and Mom walking far off on the beach, both carrying their shoes and heading toward the lighthouse.

  Sea air, ahh. “God, I love the way it smells here,” I said. “I could live here for the smell.”

  Natalie grabbed the pooch of her tummy. “How am I going to get my little friend into my dress tomorrow?”

  “Love your belly,” I said. “You’re not going to become one of those girls that talks about food all the time, are you? We hate that. Being good or being bad?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to the dark side. Lettuce leaves and ketchup on a spoon are definitely the way to moral superiority.”

  “If brownies are a sin, then, I’m sorry, I’m a sinner.”