by Abby Sher
Gus didn’t answer. He was already snoring.
That was the whole point. Mom needed to start over. Gus and I had to either get on board or step aside. I wasted months gritting my teeth and scowling at Mom every time she told us she had plans or that her back pain was completely gone. She either never noticed or willfully ignored me. Soon Elan was coming over to cook us dinner and helping Mom plant a vegetable garden in our backyard. For her fiftieth birthday, he got her a fancy mountain bike and they drove up to the Finger Lakes to pedal their way into fitness euphoria.
“Don’t you ever get scared that he’ll put your mom in a spinal-freedom trance?” Zoe once asked me. It felt good to have an ally in this fight. She agreed that Elan was a little too calm to be human. Also, that he cooked with too much turmeric.
Elan not only loved my mom; he also loved our kitchen. He graced us with his presence at least three nights out of the week now to concoct some vegetarian delicacy that often involved seaweed. He still paid rent on a studio apartment twenty minutes away, but most of his belongings (and camping gear) were in my home. He even had his own key. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when I got home from Zoe’s house and he was the one to throw open the front door and say, “Well, hello, Miss Almost-Eleventh Grader. How was your day?”
“Hi, Elan. Fine. Is Mom home?” I tried not to use any inflection, lest he think I was excited to talk to him. I no longer tried to stop Elan from coming over, but I also didn’t encourage interaction.
“Yes!” He high-fived himself. “Mom’s in the kitchen. Gus is upstairs. Grill will be ready in ten minutes. Booya!”
It was sad, really. Elan used so much energy trying to win me over. He was kind. And patient. He even had great posture and these hazel eyes that gazed at Mom without blinking for what felt like hours. The weird part about that was one of his irises drifted sideways. I got confused about where to focus when he was talking to me—which was way too often.
“Hey,” I said to Mom as I walked through the kitchen.
“My girl!” Mom cheered.
I tried to kiss her on the cheek, but she was checking the temperature of the oven, so it was more like gumming her jaw.
“Damnit!” she said. “I burned the fennel spears again. How did I do that?”
“Just talented, I guess,” I said, heading upstairs. Mom was definitely the worst cook I knew. When Gus and I were younger, we sang a song called, “That’s Not a House Fire, That’s Mom Using the Toaster.” I was on piano. Gus came up with the melody and lyrics. I missed our scrappy talent shows with homemade refreshments (aka stale Halloween candy) and multiple costume changes. I would gladly eat Mom’s charred pizza bagels for dinner every day for the rest of my life if it meant Elan would disappear.
But Elan was very much a part of our lives.
“Did you know that next weekend it will be exactly three years since your mother agreed to date me and consequently turned my world upside down,” Elan asked a half hour later as he lifted a glass of rosé on our deck.
“You should make sure nothing spilled out,” I muttered.
Gus gave me a swift kick under the table, but Mom and Elan were oblivious.
“And to celebrate,” Elan continued, “I was thinking we could all go camping this weekend at Tall Pines. I know it’s the first week of school, so you might have other plans, but…”
I had to make a concentrated effort not to spit my food across the room. “All together?” I croaked. Gus looked at me and bit his lip. I was pretty sure that he thought that was a horrible idea too, but he would never say it aloud.
“It’s a four-person tent, right, hon?” asked Mom.
“Yes, indeed.”
This was sounding more catastrophic by the moment.
“There’s no way I’m—”
This time Gus kicked me hard. I took a breath and started over. “I mean, first of all, thank you for the invite. But I think I should stay home. As you said, first week of school and … plans. Y’know.”
“Fair enough,” said Mom.
“Gus, you’re still welcome to come,” said Elan.
“Thanks,” said Gus. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course, buddy.”
The rest of the dinner was a fascinating discussion of which spices Mom and Elan had used on the barbecued tempeh and how sea salt differed from regular salt. I noticed that Gus was mostly pushing around his food like me but gave myself extra-credit points for not verbalizing my disgust. In fact, I uttered nary a word until Mom realized she’d promised to get a different kind of notebook for Gus and the only store open was going to close soon. Which I was pretty sure was one of her ploys to get me and Elan to connect more.
“You guys good to clean up?” she asked. “Be back in a jiff, I swear.”
“No problemo,” said Elan before I could answer.
Gus and Mom were already on their way out the door by the time I finished chewing and realized I was stuck alone with this uninvited-yet-so-close-to-permanent guest and a pile of uneaten fennel. Not to mention the five pans Mom had used in the kitchen.
We cleared the table in silence and I got to work out some of my aggression by scrubbing. Elan was, of course, very helpful, wiping down the counters and table.
“Thanks,” I said without thinking.
It was my own fault for opening the door to discussion with him. He put down his dish towel, leaned toward me, and said, “Hey. You’re welcome. Thank you.”
I turned the faucet on harder to drown out our silence. I only had two more glasses to rinse though. And Elan excelled at waiting. After the glasses, I loaded the soap, turned on the dishwasher, and even scoured the sink. Elan just stood there. His feet planted squarely. His breath menacingly calm.
The moment I shut the water off, he said, “Hannah, I know these past few years haven’t been the easiest on you, and I just want to express my gratitude to you for allowing me into your life.”
I’d never allowed him in. And I’d certainly voted against him making a copy of our key and once accidentally tipped over his moped. But this was perhaps the most annoying part of Life with Elan™. I hated how he twisted everything around, so it sounded like he was complimenting me or that he was honored to feel the sting of my disdain. It was probably some espionage tactic—killing or at least coercing the enemy with kindness. He had to realize I was no sucker. I couldn’t be played by this onion-breathed mole.
“It’s all good,” I said forcefully, my jaw tight.
“And I trust that if there’s anything you want to discuss, you know I’m here.”
I knew he was here, all right. He could not stop being here.
“Because, you know, I think you’re really bright and perceptive, and I wonder when you’ll feel brave enough to express some of your feelings aloud.”
“Um, brave enough?” I asked. I was pretty sure there was steam coming out of my ears and nose at this point.
Elan shook his head and chuckled. As if he’d just done something silly like squeeze out too much toothpaste or put i after e instead of before. “I mean, comfortable enough,” he explained.
“Mmhmm.” I nodded. Readying myself. “I guess I do have something to say. Though it’s more like a question.”
“Of course!” Elan chirped eagerly. “Fire away. Please.”
So I spun toward his open, eager face and asked, “Has your one eye always done that weird thing or do you think you should see a doctor?”
October yada yada.
Not that you care, but
I guess I had more to say after all.
My darling Hank,
It’s so odd to me that you haven’t written back yet after I shared such intimate, vulnerable feelings with you!
I should probably just write to someone else, but you were right once again—my online relationships have proven pretty fruitless, especially since there’s
NO FREAKEN WI-FI HERE!
WTF??!!!
If you have a chance to check up on our v
ideo stats, I’d be ever so grateful, my pet.
Ha! That was a joke. Travis already made me dismantle everything. Alli was crying even harder than I was as I did it.
[insert pathetic emoji here]
Anywhos, wanna hear what I learned this morning in Reading Time?
There are these fish in the coral reef called gobies who all have eating disorders!
True story.
I think instead of gobies, they should be called bitchfish.
Get this: Each colony has like seventeen female gobies and one male. The queen goby is the biggest and fattest, and since she’s the biggest and fattest, she’s the only one allowed to procreate.
Sick, right?
But wait—there’s more.
The other gobies are so scared of shaking up the whole animal hierarchy that they’ll starve themselves just to stay skinnier than Queen Fatso.
If they put on too much weight, Queenie will push them out of the colony, and then they’re done-zo.
Probably attacked by a passing Hankfish.
Actually, that’s not even fair.
You never had a great appetite—yet another reason why I vowed to stop eating in front of you last year.
Did you even realize that?
I know exactly what day it was too—June 12.
A beautiful afternoon, actually. The sun was out, the birds were chirping, and a bunch of us went to Yoshi’s after school, of course.
You said you weren’t hungry, so I didn’t get anything either.
And then, at the last minute, you decided to get an order of fries because Hey! Why not, right?
There was not a single cell in your body writhing in confusion or self-loathing. Not a single calculation of how many saturated or unsaturated or polyunsaturated fats could be in that little cardboard boat of yumminess. Or whether adding ketchup (which you did) would equal 25 burpees per lick.
None of that.
I remember standing there, watching you chew that pile of greasy hope. I hated you for being so careless and unpredictable and skinny.
So greasy, grimy, happy, and free.
Queen Goby. Except no matter what you eat or don’t eat or how much you exercise or don’t exercise you’re still smaller than me!
How in the what???
And you know what the worst part about that afternoon was?
You handed me a fry and I spouted some lie about not being hungry or just having had a huge lunch and you just nodded and smiled.
As if you almost wanted or expected me to lie.
CHAPTER 4
missing diana gaia
Uncle Ricky’s Chevy Malibu already had 100,000 miles on it and smelled like hot musk. I didn’t care though. It was mine. The most momentous thing I’d done this past summer was pass my driver’s test and inherit this vehicle. (I also had to shell out $125 of hard-earned babysitting and organizing-for-old-people money to get a tune-up for this dented but well-loved sedan.) Of course, it was a weird maroonish color and still had the embarrassing vanity plates he’d bought reading HOT RIC. Also, a police scanner still sat on the dashboard because Uncle Ricky loved to test the speed limit.
“Sweet ride,” Zoe said as she slid into the passenger seat the next morning. “Oh, hey, Gus,” she added, noticing my brother in the backseat. “What’s on your face?”
“Nothing,” Gus answered. “What’s on your face?”
“Ha.” Zoe shrugged and turned back around. I swatted her knee, so she’d leave Gus alone. If only she’d commented on my mustache instead.
I came from a hairy family. There was really no way around that. My dad was from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I guess they grew an extra layer of hair to stay warm. My mom was vaguely Turkish and had some distant cousin in India, but mostly she was an Ashkenazi Jewish girl from Philly. By the time I was eight years old, my leg fur was so dark and thick that someone at our town pool called me Sasquatch. Mom said I should march back over and tell that idiot about women’s lib and a little thing called natural beauty. I didn’t. Instead, I started a file of ads for follicle treatments and electrolysis that promised to remove all traces of my pelt but cost more than my parents’ mortgage.
I knew Zoe’s comment wasn’t referring to me though. There was a faint yet undeniable sweep of dust-colored hair on Gus’s upper lip, which I purposely hadn’t mentioned even though it had been getting more pronounced all summer. Gus was easily embarrassed but stayed quiet about his feelings. When I tried to catch his eye in the rearview mirror to apologize for Zoe’s comment, he was staring out his window. Studying the soggy suburban terrain.
It was Gus’s first day of high school, and he was acting like it was no big deal, but I worried about how it would affect him. There was the whole getting-from-one-side-of-the-school-to-the-other-in-under-four-minutes challenge. (Our high school was literally half a mile long.) He also happened to have been assigned the strictest Social Studies teacher, and there were new statewide exams for freshman reading comprehension—his worst subject.
Even more than that, I was scared about Gus socially. Not that I was doing so great in that category, but he was a sensitive kid.
Gus was truly one of the coolest people I knew, though I tried not to tell him that since he was and always would be two years younger than me. He was hilarious and freckly and taught himself this magic trick that I still couldn’t decrypt where he pulled a quarter out of a raw egg. His room was like a mad scientist’s laboratory—strewn with homemade contraptions and mysterious potions. On the windowsill was a pinball machine crafted out of cardboard, yarn, and pom-poms. Above his bed hung a weather station (aka an empty seltzer bottle and some twisted paper clips). Gus was always adding little flourishes or accoutrements to his inventions too. Re-angling a pipe cleaner or painting a lever. Floating about and dabbling here and there in a sort of mad-scientist dance. Gus was an amazing dancer. So lithe and fluid. Our favorite activity together was dressing up in things from Mom’s closet and putting on talent shows. For a while, Gus let me paint his nails all different colors and smear big clouds of pink blush onto his cheeks. He had an alter ego named Gusaletta who hosted our shows, speaking in a prim British accent.
But in fifth grade, something happened at school. I never quite got the whole story. Only I knew it involved a lunch aide pointing out Gus’s polished nails and calling him “one of those.” Even though Gus acted like it didn’t affect him and he strictly forbade Mom from talking to our grade-school principal, things changed after that.
Gus took off all his nail polish and started biting his fingernails so short that they bled a lot. He got very quiet. Then he began having chest pains and saying he couldn’t breathe. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night to hear him panting and sobbing next to the nightlight in the hall. He became almost completely silent, though there was so much smoldering underneath. His teacher even sent a note home, asking if he should get his hearing tested. Mom took him to our pediatrician, who said there was nothing wrong physically and that these were probably anxiety attacks. Gus came home with a grape lollipop and a CD called Meditations with Diana Gaia. It was made by some woman who taught my mom yoga at the Y. All it had on it were different gong noises and someone whispering about breath as a moving entity. Somehow the energy of Diana Gaia was supposed to emerge from those sounds.
And crazy as it sounds—I think it did.
That summer before Gus went into middle school and I started Meadowlake High was actually the most calming, breath-full time in my life. Every night, before bed, Gus came into my room with that CD and we lay on my matted green carpet, listening to Diana Gaia and her gongs. We counted our inhales and exhales, envisioning warm violet light dancing around us. We let Diana Gaia take away all of our worries and send them floating down the river. As I held Gus’s hands in mine, like a palm sandwich.
I missed those nights. I’d never told anyone about them—not even Zoe. Not that it was bad. It just didn’t feel like it could or should be translated for anybody else besid
es me and Gus. I wasn’t sure I understood it fully myself even.
“Here’s good,” Gus said, breaking my reverie. His voice was tight and high, which I knew meant he was feeling extra-nervous.
“You sure?” I asked.
We were still a block and a half away from the high school. Gus barely waited for me to come to a full stop though.
“Yeah. I need to walk a little or something. Smell ya later,” was all he answered as he pushed open the rusty door and slid out.
“Text me if you need anything,” I called. “Hope your day is amazeballs!”
“Balls,” he answered softly. Which felt like at least partial victory. Gus and I thought it was ingenious and necessary to use the word balls as much as possible. Whenever one of us said it, the other had to repeat it, sort of as an affirmation. I watched Gus heave his backpack up a little higher and then sort of gallop away. I really hoped nobody saw him do that.
Certainly Zoe didn’t.
“This is so off the hook,” she said, shaking her head at her phone. “Guess how many hits we have now?”
I didn’t know who we were and what we were hitting, so I guessed, “A million gazillion.”
“More like eighty-three thousand,” she answered.
“Wait, what are we talking about?”
“The Meowsers video. Didn’t you read my post last night about how crazy grateful I am and how you and my mom were so supportive and influential in the process?”
“I wasn’t really online much last night. You mean the process of sneezing on your camera?”
“Shut your face!” Zoe said, punching me playfully. “I wrote all these nice things about you, Hank.” She pulled my hand off the steering wheel and kissed it, leaving a glossy pucker mark. I appreciated her gratitude, but I was still a pretty nervous driver, so I yanked my hand back quickly and searched for a space where I could avoid the whole parallel parking idea.
Zoe was now reading aloud some of the adoring comments from her phone:
You are too cute.