by Abby Sher
Zoe grasped my hand and rolled herself into my side. “I’m sorry he’s doing this,” she whispered in my ear though it was definitely loud enough for Travis to hear too. “This is exactly why I needed you here. I swear, I’d kill myself if you weren’t.”
I didn’t want to be in the middle of this standoff anymore. I needed them both to know that if they were looking for me to be the lifeboat, I was already deflated and currently sinking. There was so much fiery hurt and resentment coming from both their faces though. All I could do to tamp down the flames was give a dull “Oh-kay.”
“Thank you thank you,” Zoe gushed. Squeezing my palm so hard I could hear two knuckles crack. “Here, let’s at least have a drink, shall we?” She reached for the bottle of Diet Coke, unscrewed the cap, and took a long slug. Then she passed it to me so I could drink some too.
“I do have cups,” her dad said. He didn’t hand them to us though. Just stood in the dim kitchen, waiting for something—anything—to change.
“No way!” Zoe yelled. “Okay, you both want to see some awesome shots of the dance?” Travis and I both jolted toward her, so eager for the diversion. Zoe was making her way over to the futon, fielding a bunch of texts and video footage on her phone that was cracking her up.
I should have made sure she was watching me as I came up beside her. I should have waited until she was seated or at least facing in my general direction before I attempted to hand her back the two-liter bottle of soda. I should have, but of course, I didn’t. I thought she’d grabbed it, so I let go. And then both of us just watched—dumbly mesmerized—as it tumbled onto the futon and started emptying itself onto the floor.
“Wah-wah,” Zoe sang, like the sound on a game show when the answer was wrong and you’d lost your chance at the final round.
“I’m so sorry I’m so sorry,” I blathered. The bottle was gurgling and spitting out dark bubbles all over the mattress and wall-to-wall carpeting.
“No problem,” said Travis in a singsong that sounded too high for him. He swooped down to pick up the bottle while I went back to the kitchen to search for paper towels. There were exactly two squares left on the roll, which sank quickly into the brown puddle. Then he scurried over to the closet by his front door and took out a faded Mets T-shirt. He dropped it on the carpet and started mopping up the mess. I bent down to help him, but Zoe grabbed my arm and pulled me back up.
“It’s fine. Right, Travis?” asked Zoe.
“Oh sure,” he answered. “Just want you girls to be able to sleep here comfortably.”
I winced. He was now on his hands and knees in front of us, squirting dish soap into the stained mattress, then smearing it frantically. Every once in a while running back to the kitchen sink to wring out the saturated towel and starting anew.
I didn’t know what the rules of this game were, but it felt cruel. Zoe was scrolling through more pictures on her phone, acting like she couldn’t see her dad toiling away, even though his shoulder was grazing our legs. I’d never seen her act this horrible to Travis. Or to anyone, for that matter. But Travis especially—she had always adored him. Wedging herself into the crook of his elbow and begging him to sing us a new tune. I didn’t know why I thought of it at this moment, but I had a distinct memory of Travis carrying Zoe from the car after we came home late from the movies one night. I was so jealous of the way he tucked her into his chest. Protecting her even from the sheen of a streetlight with his mighty embrace. I pretended I was asleep too, just in case he thought to sweep me into his arms also. (But when Alli opened my door, I popped up quickly.)
Whatever Travis Hammer had done, he was still a great dad, in my book at least. And yet, there he was, crawling on the carpet in front of us. Forsaken in a sea of dish soap bubbles.
“Ugh. How do I still have this double chin?” Zoe grumbled next to me. She deleted an unflattering picture.
“Impossible,” I said, reaching for the phone. But she shut it off and hid it behind her butt, flipping her attention back to the room.
“How’s it going, Travis? You need us to make a rain check for this sleepover?” she asked, standing up.
This was too much, even for Travis. He stood up quickly and faced Zoe straight on. I was so relieved to see that he was still taller than her. By at least a foot. He held the saturated T-shirt out behind him, each drip making a muted plop.
“We’re going to make this work,” he said determinedly. “I’m going to run out to that 7-Eleven on the corner to pick up some more paper towels and maybe another bottle of soda. I will be right back.” His words were clipped and nonnegotiable.
“Great,” Zoe answered. Which was the closest she’d come to saying anything kind all night.
Travis didn’t move though. He took a deep breath through his nose and said in a voice just skimming above the surface of a whisper, “I know you’re not hungry now, but maybe I could get something for the morning? Like English muffins or some fruit?”
I nodded. Mainly just to have something to do. I was already trying to figure out how to sneak out of this apartment before dawn and I certainly didn’t need Travis to feed me, but his jaw looked so heavy and pained that I said, “That sounds great, thanks.”
“Yeah,” added Zoe. “Maybe if they have Rice Krispies. Or some grapes.”
Travis and I exhaled in unison. It was such a simple, calm request.
“Of course! Yes!” he blurted. “I love Rice Krispies too!”
His smile so hopeful it hurt.
* * *
As soon as the door clicked shut, Zoe checked the peephole and attached the chain lock on top. “All right,” she said. “Before you call me a monster and feel all sorry for him, just come here. Look!”
She led me back into the kitchen and opened up the refrigerator again.
“Behind the butter,” she said.
I stood on tiptoes but couldn’t tell what I was looking for. “More butter?” I guessed. Zoe was unamused.
“Move.” She pushed in front of me and took down a small Ziploc with shreds of dry green leaves in it. She shook it in front of my face.
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s not oregano, and it rhymes with flarijuana.” She was so excited, she was doing a little dance like a boxer getting ready for a prizefight.
“Do you think he…?”
“Uses it? Duh. Sells it? Possibly. Either way, it’s totally illegal and I have to mention it in court so Alli gets more alimony.”
She took out her phone again and snapped a picture.
“I didn’t know you were going to court,” I said, feeling weak.
Zoe rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t going to, but if he has the money for drugs, he should be giving us more too. He’s a shithead, Hank. I know it’s hard for you to see that when he plays all sweet and innocent but trust me. He is.”
She started opening random cabinets and drawers, though I had no idea what kind of incriminating evidence she was seeking.
“But maybe it’s … medical. And he’s your dad.”
“Was my dad,” she corrected, opening and closing the refrigerator one more time with a ferocious swing. She was done tearing open the kitchen and was moving on to the bathroom. I followed her in. It was beige and cavernous. Surprisingly big, with a metal handrail by the toilet and another in the shower stall.
“Is this a retirement community?” I asked.
“Ha! No, but I’ll tell him you said that.”
“No, please.” I wanted to take back everything about this night—what I’d said, where I’d been, how I’d waited and listened to everything unravel. Zoe was emptying out her dad’s toiletries bag now. Holding up pill bottles and listing all the reasons he was unfit as a father.
“Vitamin C, vitamin D, Mega Maca,” she said. “Thank you very much!” She twisted the cap open and popped one in her mouth. Turned on the faucet and leaned over, slurping from the stream.
“You want?” She offered me the open bottle, but I waved it away.
“We also have your
uppers here—” She lined up a few more bottles and a small plastic bag that was full of brown capsules. “Why not, right?” She opened the bag and stuck a capsule under her nose, inhaling deeply and wincing.
Another slurp and it slid down her throat.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked. “I swear, it’s all herbal.”
“But what do they do?” I had visions of her being whisked off in a stretcher to get her stomach pumped.
“A whole lot of nothing, really,” she answered. “Some of them keep you up; some of them make you feel totally relaxed. Travis swore all last winter that if I took two glucosamines and called him in the morning, I’d have perfect attention span and joint health. Plus maybe I’d stop crying myself to sleep. You see how great that worked.”
She shook some more bottles at me, then threw open a narrow closet next to Travis’s shower. Staring at his two spare rolls of toilet paper on the otherwise bare shelves. “It’s his fault that I’m like this!”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Ha!” Zoe cackled. “Nice one, Hank. Invincible! Unstoppable! The most obnoxiously self-centered brat on Earth! Ready to destroy everything in her wake!”
She started unwinding the toilet paper and then threw the rolls to the floor. Stomping and raging.
“Aha!” she yelled, picking off a small blue bottle of cologne from a shelf and waving it in front of my face. She was one screech away from rabid, her eyes pulsating.
“What am I looking at now?” I whined.
“He never wore cologne before! I bet it’s from Roxanne. Did I tell you they met in church choir? How lame is that?”
“Wait—so if he has cologne, that means he’s sleeping with someone?” I honestly didn’t follow her logic. But Zoe had no time to explain.
“Hallelujah!” she sang. “I bet there’s Viagra in here too. And condoms. Unless he’s trying to get her pregnant, so he can fuck up a whole new family.” Now Zoe was ripping open the drawers under the sink, checking the empty garbage can, even turning on the shower for hidden traces of something. It was so scary to see her like this. Anger throbbing in her forehead and coloring her skin a raw red.
“Why are you just standing there?” she growled.
“I’m—”
“Hank, you can get suckered into his sad routine if you want, but just know he’s lying to you too. The whole taking some time to figure things out is bullshit. There’s always another woman. That’s just the way men are. They can only think with their dicks!”
“But maybe…” I had nothing to fill in that blank. I just wanted Zoe to take a breath and be wrong. From inside the bathroom, I heard a key clicking into the apartment’s front-door lock. Zoe and I both shuddered as the knob squeaked and the chain caught his momentum.
“Hello?” Travis called. “Zoe? Hank? Hey, I think you might’ve locked the top lock by mistake,” he said. He knocked lightly on the door. It had to be past 1:00 A.M. by now and I was sure he didn’t want to wake any of his new neighbors. “Girls?”
Zoe shook her head at me and put a finger to her lips as she tiptoed out of the bathroom to stand facing the front door. I, of course, followed.
“Girls?!” Travis sounded like he was getting scared. I heard him fumbling with the chain and cursing under his breath. He closed the door and then opened it again, his panting getting more forceful. Then I heard Zoe’s cell phone ringing. So did she.
Instead of saying hello, she answered with, “Hammer residence! How may I direct your call?”
“Zoe, please. Don’t do this.” I could hear his voice in stereo—low and close. “C’mon, honey.”
“Just tell me, did Roxanne get a boob job, or are they naturally perky?” Zoe demanded into the phone.
“What are you talking about—”
“You know, someone should tell the minister about what’s going on in that choir. Are you both still going to rehearsals or was that all a front?”
“I enjoy singing in the church choir, and I believe Roxanne does too, but that has no bearing on—”
“Ha-ha!” Zoe howled. “Told ya!” She shoved the phone at me, baring her teeth in a grimace.
“No, you’re not listening,” Travis pleaded. “Just let me in so we can talk.”
It was too much. Even if he had slept with this vixen Roxanne. Even if he had five different families located in five different states. He was a grown man begging to come into his own, sad home. He was her father.
“What?” Zoe snarled at me. Then she answered her own question. “I know you think I’m so mean and you’d never do anything like this to your dad. Well, guess what, Hank? We can’t all be perfect like you.”
“I didn’t say I was perfect.” I tried to stand still and tall even though everything inside me was quivering with hurt.
Zoe’s wrath terrified me. I’d seen her depressed before. I’d heard her rant about her parents’ dysfunction. But this was a whole new dimension of pain. It seemed to infect her like a consumption. Her tears melting into her cheeks.
“Just get out of here already!” she seethed. “You know you want to! I’m disgusting and horrible and I deserve to be alone. Go!”
“Hank.” Travis sounded like he had crouched down in the hallway, beseeching me from that slip of space between the floor and the sill. “Please. I know this is awkward. But can you just reach up and unhook the chain?”
I gazed at the door. Then back at Zoe. Her eyes hard with fury. Her nostrils flaring. She raised a brow as if to say, I dare you.
It didn’t matter what he’d done or hadn’t done. Whether he made her believe in the power of glucosamine or took her to Disney World. Zoe had no idea how lucky she was to have her dad alive—trying to repair as much as he could. Trying to feed her and piece her back together. She had no idea how many people she was hurting and taking for granted. She acted like she was entitled to all the anger and despair in the universe, while I was the one who’d been literally abandoned by everyone in my life.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I slid past Zoe, unhooked the chain lock, and yanked open the door. Travis pitched forward with his bags, catching the knob on his forehead as he crumpled to his knees with a pitiful grunt.
“I’m … sorry,” I said to the room.
“It’s okay,” Travis said, gasping.
“No it’s not!” Zoe wailed. “Nothing’s okay. And nothing’s gonna be okay!” She threw herself onto the wet futon, rolling around and flailing her arms. Travis gathered himself up and went over to console her, but she swatted him away.
“I hate you!” she shrieked. “You too, Hank! I hate you both so much! I really do!”
Everything stung. My eyes filled with water. So did my mouth. Zoe burrowed herself into the dry corner of the mattress, tucking her legs under her until she looked like a partly polka-dotted turtle. Her spine sticking out in a ridge down her shell.
I looked at Travis as he gazed at her. Only, I had no idea what he saw. There was a little egg-shaped welt blossoming above his right eye and he was blinking a lot. He rustled through his plastic bags as if he could find something in there to douse this fire. Ultimately he decided the only thing left to do was cover her in a semi-damp sheet.
She stayed knotted in that tight, fetal position. The only movement was the slowing rise and fall of her hunched shoulder blades. Travis and I continued to watch. Until she must have fallen asleep, because her arms loosened and one slipped out of the cover to dangle on the floor.
I saw three more neat scratches peeking out of her left sleeve at the wrist. Startlingly pink and clear. I reached forward to tuck her arm back in and then stopped.
I couldn’t be in charge of covering her up anymore.
I couldn’t ignore those scars, disguise them, or strike any more deals.
In that moment, I came to understand that there was no saving Zoe Hammer. At least not on my own. Her misery was too big for this room; for this friendship. She was starving and wretched and too jagged to touch. She p
ulled her arm back in to her side and flipped to face the other wall. I watched her resettle and wondered what life was going to be like without her as my best friend.
* * *
Travis silently laid down a blanket and pillow for me on the floor next to the soggy futon. I brushed my teeth without even running the water because I didn’t want to risk waking Zoe up.
When I came out of the bathroom, Travis said, “I’m sorry this has been so hard on her.” He looked at me as if I could be the one to forgive him.
“I’m just … here,” I answered.
Then I buried myself under that stiff blanket and tried to will myself to sleep. Most of the night I just gazed up at the speckled tiles of Travis’s ceiling though. Listening to the rain thrumming, the spray of passing car wheels, the clink and ping of his deluged gutters. I knew time was passing, but the morning couldn’t come fast enough.
I knew I was leaving. And I just wanted to go.
Wednesday. Half past the freckle.
Listen, I know it’s not all your fault, Hank.
I wish it was, really. But the more I sit in these therapy sessions and stuff my face with rice pudding, I see it’s not. I want to blame you for every missed day of school and every reactionary journal entry and every mindful meditation on self-reflective, nonjudgmental bullshit in here.
It’s not you though.
What is it, you ask?
Huh. It’s everything.
I mean Mommy issues, Daddy issues, who-am-I, and why-am-I-here issues.
Nobody look at me!
Everybody look at me!
Why do I feel like a giant hole that can never be filled?!
I keep having this recurring nightmare that I’ll start buttering a dinner roll and never stop. I’ll just keep adding more and more butter. Spreading it all over my roll, then my face. My hands, lips, eyebrows, hair.
Because I could, you know.
Hank—the scariest thing is that the more I eat, the hungrier I get.