Upstander

by James Preller

  It helped Jonny for a little while, and then it didn’t help at all. Like a vacation that was amazing until real life kicked in and you forgot it ever happened.

  Mary didn’t know what to say. Her mind clouded over, shut down. She shook her head. “This conversation isn’t happening. I gotta go,” she said, and moved past him.

  She hated that Griff knew.

  “Hey, don’t be like that,” he said.

  Her family’s business was a secret. It wasn’t something to chat about while snarfing down pizza and chips.

  What was it Griff had said?

  They had a connection.

  No, Mary thought. No, we don’t.

  5

  [marshmallows]

  Walking home, Mary resolved not to think about Griffin Connelly. That boy had jangled her nerves. We have a connection. Yeah, right. She looked forward to popping a marshmallow—or, okay, three—into her mouth. Not at the same time, of course. Eating marshmallows always helped bring her world into balance. Namaste, Mary thought, grinning to herself. She imagined a chubby marshmallow, with little stick arms and legs, doing yoga. Downward dog, maybe, or meditating. That might be funny to draw. Ohmmmm. If she could think of a clever caption, it might even be a cartoon: the mindful marshmallow.

  Mary kept a secret stash of marshmallows in the back of her bottom dresser drawer. The big, extra-fat ones they sold at Stewart’s for s’mores. Marshmallows were Mary’s weakness. But, seriously, that wasn’t the best way to express it: a weakness. It’s not like Mary wolfed down an entire bag in one sitting. It wasn’t a problem; she wasn’t in a marshmallow crisis or anything. Mary knew that sugar was super bad for you—everyone saw the same videos in health class—but a couple a day wasn’t going to kill anybody.

  Mary then made the strategic mistake of opening the front door. Home sweet home.

  Her mother’s voice came from the kitchen, sharp and urgent, “Are you high right now? Just tell me.”

  “Jesus, Mom, no!” Jonny shot back.

  They were fighting again. It felt as if the air in the house was crowded with charged particles. Mary could sense the electrons and protons ricocheting off the furniture like steel balls from a shotgun. The muscles in her lower neck tensed.

  “You’re lying—” her mother shouted.

  “Hi! I’m home!” Mary called out in her sunniest voice. It was as much a plea as a greeting: I’m home; you can stop now, please. Mary heard the rattling of dishes in the sink, the scraping of a chair across the floor, but no greeting in response. She waited, slipped off her sandals. This is ridiculous, she decided. I’m in my own house. I live here.

  “If you love me, you’ll stop.” It was her mother’s voice, raw with emotion.

  “I told you. I’m not using,” Jonny retorted.

  Mary stood at the entranceway to the kitchen. Her mother leaned against the counter, arms crossed, scowling. Jonny sat at the table, cereal floating in a bowl of milk. He wore an unbuttoned cardigan sweater. Yes, in August. The rules of this particular contest: no punching, no kicking, just words. Winner takes nothing. Jonny tapped a spoon in agitated rhythm on his right thigh. That was his giveaway. The way his eyes darted and his body vibrated with pent-up energy. The muscles of his jaw tightened from clenched teeth.

  “Don’t come in here, May,” Jonny warned, not looking in her direction. “Mom’s acting like a crazy person again.”

  There was a prickly edge to his voice, like razors strung across wire. His hair looked oily and uncombed. His pale skin appeared nearly translucent, except for the dark circles under his eyes. Mary thought, Don’t pretend I’m on your side. I’m not your ally, brother. I’m not on anyone’s side.

  “I don’t even recognize you anymore,” her mother said. “This isn’t you, Jonny. It’s not you.”

  “Oh, Jesus, here it comes,” Jonny muttered, the spoon rat-a-tat-tatting against his leg. He raked a hand through his hair.

  Mary’s mother stepped toward her only son, palms open. “You’ve got to listen to me, Jonny. We can’t go on like this.”

  Jonny flicked the spoon into the cereal bowl, splashing the milk. The spoon bounced and rattled to the floor, hitting his mother’s leg. “I’m trying to eat one bowl of cereal in this insane house,” he roared. “So freaking what? I slept late. Lots of people do. Besides, I have a stomachache. It hurts. I probably have an ulcer. Do you even care? Besides, what temperature do you keep it in here? I’m freezing!”

  “It’s set at seventy-two degrees—”

  “It’s too cold. I get the chills living here. It’s ridiculous, Mom. I’m nineteen years old. I party a little bit. A regular, normal amount. It’s one of the few things in the world that actually feels good. That’s my big federal crime, Ma? That I go out with my friends?”

  “Your friends,” her mother scoffed. She brushed the thought away with a wave of her hand.

  “Yeah, my friends.” Jonny rose to his feet, his movement sudden and alarming. “Real people who actually care about me.”

  Mary stood paralyzed, watching it all. They had forgotten she was there. She had become invisible in her own kitchen.

  Mary’s mother stepped back. She brought a hand to the side of her head, trying to collect her thoughts—or to keep them from exploding. With obvious effort, she adopted a softer voice. More soothing, calmer. “Jonny, please, listen to me. Please. You need help. I think you have a prob—”

  “Oh no. No, no, no. I’m not going back to that place,” he said.

  Her mother held out a hand, patting the air. “Okay, okay, just … sit … okay?”

  “You can’t make me. I’d rather die than go back to Western Winds,” Jonny replied. He sat back down. Swiveled his head, stared coldly at his sister. “Good luck when I’m gone,” he said. “It’ll be just you, Mom, and the Garden Gnome in this demented house.”

  The Garden Gnome was Jonny’s nickname for Ernesto, their mother’s boyfriend. Ernesto was short and paunchy, and he wore a scraggly, elfish beard. Not his fault, but those were the facts. Mary stifled a grin. She caught herself and flashed a time-out sign with her hands. “Stop. Just stop.”

  Mary crossed to the refrigerator. Grabbed two clementines, checked her phone, looked from her mother to Jonny. “I’ll be in my room,” she announced. “Headphones on.”

  6

  [ghosts]

  On days like this, Mary hated being home, and most days were like this. The house full of drama, worry, stress; her mother anxious about Jonny, and Jonny doing whatever he pleased. The same tug-of-war nearly every day. Threats and accusations followed by excuses and broken promises. Which was why Mary spent most of her time outside or up in her room, drawing pictures, painting, eating marshmallows, zoning out.

  It was the summer when Mary first realized she lived in a house of ghosts. One by one, they’d started moving in, replacing the old occupants. Their father was the original ghost, but he had passed years ago, when she was only three, so that wasn’t new or, for Mary, keenly felt. Jonny was the big change. The thing with ghosts is when they take over, they don’t send out a group message. It’s subtler than that. You might not notice the change for weeks, months, maybe years. Then you look up and, oh wait, “You’re not my brother.”

  “Yes, I am,” the phantom replies.

  But you both know it’s a lie.

  The real brother has vanished, maybe gone for good.

  The ghost stands there, lanky frame swimming in an oversize T-shirt, wearing his clothes, pretending to be her beautiful big brother.

  But it’s totally not.

  Mary could tell by the eyes, darting from place to place: the floor, the window, the bedroom door, as if scanning for exits in case of fire. Ghosts are weird about sleep. They don’t need much of it at night, but then will nod off at the breakfast table, a half-chewed piece of raisin toast in their mouth. It’s the ghost way of eating. Food doesn’t really matter to them; swallowing was part of the disguise.

  She heard Jonny clomping in the hallway,
coughing. It didn’t sound like he was being followed by their mother, which was a good thing. Sometimes she chased him up the stairs, and the battle raged on and on. Maybe they declared a ceasefire. The bathroom door opened, then closed. She heard the shower.

  Mary swung open her door, left it partly ajar, and returned to her desk. She spied Jonny as he padded past like an old cat, towel wrapped around his waist. He was skinnier than ever, ribs showing, scapula blades too prominent, but somehow having him home felt less dangerous than the thought of him out there somewhere, doing who knows what. Home, at least, he was safe. That was the dream anyway.

  The thing with ghosts, Mary speculated, is they don’t feel anything. That’s how they know they’re dead. The not-feeling is a big clue. It’s also helpful, because that’s basically how a ghost tolerates being a ghost. Because, again, the not-feeling thing. The last sensation a ghost wanted was to start feeling emotions, empathy, self-awareness, anything. That was how Jonny lived now, she could tell. It was like when your foot’s fallen asleep and then you try to walk. Zombie foot. Those pins and needles, fighting against the numbness.

  The only way you wake up is through pain.

  Ghosts want to stay numb.

  They don’t want to feel—because feelings hurt.

  For some people, maybe even her brother, drugs were novocaine for the soul. As the dentist says before he sticks in the needle: “You’ll feel a slight pinch, and then it won’t hurt a bit.”

  Mary scribbled in her sketch pad. Weird faces inspired by Picasso, ears where eyeballs ought to go, cockeyed expressions, twisted lips, dangling noses. Then she looked at the page in surprise. Shock, actually. For across the bottom she had scrawled the words, Is he going to die?

  Mary’s mind didn’t consciously pose that question. It was as if her hand had dreamed it up, the worryfear rising up from her body.

  So, well, is he?

  Mary sat and stared, pondering the answer. She almost added, Maybe.

  “We all die, May,” Jonny had told her once. He’d called her that for years, changing Mary to May. She called him Jonny Bear—for no particular reason. She liked their private nicknames, their secret language. She recalled that conversation, we all die, the one time she got up the nerve to confront him with her deepest fear: that he might be killing himself, that he’d ruin his life if he wasn’t careful. Get off drugs. Stop altogether. Come back to being Jonny, the brother she’d lost, the one who had abandoned her when she’d needed him most. After Mary’s big speech, all those passionate, carefully rehearsed words, that’s all he had said. Smiled wanly in her direction, like a poser Holy Ghost, as if he knew a secret but couldn’t tell. “Everybody dies. We all die, May.”

  She could have punched him in the face. Should have. Because at that moment it felt to Mary like he was already dead. Already lost, adrift, floating tetherless through interstellar space—where no one can hear you scream. Mary felt forsaken. The core experience of being abandoned began when her father died in that car accident. She didn’t have many memories of him. At least, not true memories. There were photographs, videos, so she knew what her father looked like, how he acted when the camera was on, but it didn’t seem completely real to her. A memory of a stranger once removed. Horrible to say, but her father might as well have been a supporting actor in a movie she saw at the Cineplex 18. Their father’s death was harder on Jonny, though he never said much about it. No complaints. He just pulled up his socks and went forward with his life—and he was pretty fabulous for a long time until, all at once, he wasn’t so fabulous anymore.

  Now it’s their mom, Patti, and this latest boyfriend Ernesto—who was perfectly fine in a lumpish, who-really-cares kind of way. Mary kept her distance. She couldn’t tell if Ernesto was for real or not. Here to stay or just passing through, eating all the good snacks. All her life, it had always been Mary and Jonny, together. Not aligned against their mother, exactly, but definitely #TeamKids. And then Jonny ghosted them all.

  Mary heard a shout. She lifted the headphones away from her left ear.

  Her mother was screaming up the stairs.

  Jonny’s door slammed.

  Give it up, Mom, Mary thought.

  Give up the ghost.

  She turned up the music, loud, but it never got loud enough.

  7

  [pic]

  Mary liked Chantel, and they would have hung out more if Chantel wasn’t so incredibly overbooked. Where Mary enjoyed long stretches of free time, Chantel always had something to do: sports, clubs, music lessons, Girl Scouts, household chores—even a mini job as a mother’s helper, caring for a neighbor’s eight-month-old baby. Chantel never had downtime. It left Mary feeling sorry for Chantel—so scheduled!—and also a little envious. So it came as a refreshing change of pace when Chantel invited Mary over for quesadillas. “My travel basketball practice got canceled, so I asked if I could invite a friend over,” Chantel explained over the phone. “We could watch a movie, too, if you want.”

  Chantel had three little brothers that she good-naturedly referred to as “the monsters.” They were lively and cute: Darius, Jamel, and Keyon, though Mary wasn’t completely straight on who was who. Mr. Williams was away in France traveling on business, so Mary and Chantel helped Mrs. Williams prepare dinner. Even the boys had jobs. They set the table and filled water glasses without grumbling.

  Mrs. Williams was one of those “involved” parents who asked a lot of questions. Not nosy, but Mary could tell that Chantel’s mom was probing to get the lowdown on things. Mary did her best to present herself as likeable and friendly, that was one of her talents, except she wished she had a better story to tell. No, no father; no, not playing sports; no, my brother dropped out of college; no, we’re not planning any trips this summer; and so on. Maybe she should make things up? Invent a more interesting life. Yeah, played with baby elephants in Kolkata, India. Super fun!

  After dinner, which included ice cream and prayer and salad (but not in that order), it was bath time and story time and every other kind of time Mary could imagine. “Getting the monsters to bed is a big production around here,” Chantel offered with a smile. Mary helped Chantel clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher.

  Chantel’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it and shook her head. Mary sensed the message had upset Chantel, because she grew quiet and had a faraway look in her eyes. Suddenly, Chantel held out her phone and said, “He keeps asking me to send a picture.”

  At that moment, Mrs. Williams entered the kitchen. Chantel hurriedly pocketed her phone. “It looks great, girls, thank you. Mary, you are welcome to stay if you’d like. I believe Chanti had her hopes on a horror movie. I’d be happy to drop you home if you can’t get a ride.”

  Mary looked at Chantel, who smiled and nodded.

  “That sounds great, Mrs. Williams. I’d love that!” Mary replied. “Thank you very much.”

  Mrs. Williams pointed two index fingers toward the ceiling, reminding Mary of an old Western gunfighter. “Listen, I’ve got the three amigos up there. Jamel and Keyon are in the tub. I have no idea on God’s green earth what Darius is up to. I think he’s building a Lego space station or alien prison or some such folderol.” She waved a hand, amused by it all. “We haven’t had any drownings yet, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I can help—” Chantel began to offer.

  “No, Chanti, you entertain our guest while I wrestle those rascals into bed.” Mrs. Williams made a loud whew sound, as if she was exhausted, but her eyes told a different story. They twinkled brightly. Maybe she didn’t mind all that mothering after all.

  The girls didn’t pay close attention to the movie, except for the really good parts. They’d both seen it already. Instead, they huddled close, sharing one light blanket, and talked.

  “Who is asking you for a pic?”

  “Hakeem,” Chantel answered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Promise you won’t tell. It’s so stupid.”

  “Of course,” Mary said. She
paused a beat. “What did you do?”

  Chantel craned her neck to make sure her mother wasn’t nearby. “I didn’t even understand him at first,” she admitted. “I was like, a picture of what?”

  Both girls cackled.

  “You didn’t, did you?” Mary asked.

  “No!” Chantel answered. But after a pause, she admitted, “I didn’t say no, either. I made excuses like, ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I look bad right now.’ You know?”

  Mary nodded. She didn’t know, she’d never been asked before, but it was exciting to think about. Mary wondered if Hakeem had asked Alexis or Chrissie. Some boys were like that. She’d heard that older guys collected pics of girls and swapped them like trading cards. It was pretty gross. But also a little flattering. Like it might be nice to be asked by the right person, even if the answer was still definitely no. Some girls said it was no big deal, that sharing a photo was the new first base.

  “I like him,” Chantel said. “Hakeem’s nice and funny and—

  “—kind of good-looking,” Mary added, exaggerating slightly.

  Chantel let out an embarrassed laugh. “I guess, yes. But he keeps asking me. ‘Send a pic, send a pic. You look so good.’ All that stuff. Persistent, you know? I’m afraid if I shut him down, he’ll stop talking to me.”

  They both stared at the movie for a few minutes. Someone was getting stabbed with scissors. “Lupita Nyong’o is so beautiful,” Mary said, admiring the actress on-screen.

  “I know,” Chantel agreed. “Her skin is perfect.”