Together, Apart

by Erin A. Craig

  “Look it up! Wel , not right now, but later. The guy that kil ed the guy from the Beatles. JFK. Reagan.” He counted his list on his fingers. “There are loads more.”

  “Reagan didn’t die,” I pointed out. “I mean, he’s dead now, but it wasn’t an assassination.”

  “Al I’m saying…it’s a seriously questionable book and we shouldn’t be forced to read it.”

  “What should we be reading, then?”

  He tilted his head, considering, and I tried not to notice the curve of his jawline. The mask accentuated it, clearly defining its angles, and I longed to rip it aside to admire the boy underneath.

  “Something by Shirley Jackson, maybe.”

  I blinked, taken aback. Basketbal , cake, and now spooky books?

  Luka was the perfect guy.

  And I had no idea what he—or his sure-to-be-impossibly-adorable-cheerleader-girlfriend—real y looked like.

  “I love her! I read Hil House last year when the show came out.”

  His eyes sparkled. “We al read Hil House last year when the show came out. I’m so excited for season two. Have you read Turn of the Screw?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s so good. One of my favorites. I’ve read it about fifty times. Old horror is so much better than the new stuff. I like when you have to real y imagine al the creepy bits, not just have them come running out and smack you over the head. Like in—” He paused. “Sorry. I get real y excited about books.”

  “Don’t apologize! I love scary movies.”

  “Yeah? You’l go nuts over Henry James, then!”

  “I’l look it up the next time I’m at…” I trailed off, a wedge of emotions lodged in my throat. I didn’t know what the local bookstore here was and even if I did, it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be able to go inside and mindlessly browse, looking up books that a cute guy recommended.

  “Right…” Luka nodded with understanding. “Curbside delivery is al wel and good but it’s definitely not the same.” His eyes flickered down to the Salinger. “We’ve got a test on that Friday.”

  “Us too!”

  “That’s funny. I could come over later if you want talk through—”

  A tinny version of Weezer’s “Africa” started playing, leaving my hopes hung impossibly high, pinned at the back of my throat. I felt like I was at an amusement park, on the free-fal drop, the split second before gravity took over.

  Come over.

  He’d said he wanted to come over.

  Here. To see me.

  No pizza required.

  “Err…hang on….” He fished out his cel . “Hey. Yeah, I’m stil over at—

  okay…Yeah, no worries…Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Love you too.”

  Love you too.

  My heart sank. It was official. There was a girlfriend.

  He lowered the phone, turning back to me. His mask puffed out as he released a deep sigh. “Sorry about that. Gotta run. Duty cal s.”

  “Oh sure,” I said, fumbling to think of a normal way to end the conversation. “Your girlfriend could come too—to study, if you want.”

  Great, Mil s, total y normal.

  His eyebrows quirked, head tilting in confusion. “Girlfriend? Oh, no—

  gosh no! That was my dad. Big emergency at the store. Some morons are throwing a ‘social distancing party’ ”—he turned his fingers into air quotes, rol ing his eyes—“and ordered like thirty pizzas.”

  “Oh geez. That’s not…that’s not good at al .”

  “Nope,” he agreed. “But he real y needs another set of hands. I should get going.” He jogged back to his car. “Later, Mil ie.”

  “Later, Luka,” I echoed, scooping up the boxes and offering a wave as the station wagon roared to life.

  He started backing out of the driveway, then stopped, rol ing down his window. “Just so you know—there’s no girlfriend in the picture. Like, at al .”

  “Oh. Wel . That’s good,” I stammered, mortified to have been so thoroughly seen through.

  “I just thought I should make that clear.”

  My cheeks flushed with a delicious heat as he took off his mask, tossing it into the passenger seat. His grin was easy and wide and I’m sure it was

  dazzling, but real y the only thing I noticed was the gleam in his eyes as he winked at me.

  Before I could respond, he was at the end of the drive, giving his horn a friendly beep. I stood on the porch long after the red of his tail ights disappeared, feeling happier than I had in days.

  —

  “Morning, Mil s,” Dad greeted me as I stumbled into the kitchen.

  “You’re up early.”

  I’d fal en asleep long before they’d come home, passed out on the couch in an exhausted stupor after getting half the living room boxes unpacked.

  Someone, probably Mom, had tucked a quilt around me.

  “Lots to do.” He was already dressed for work, perched on a stool, eating a slice of cold pizza straight out of the box.

  “That was my lunch!” I protested.

  He studied the crust with a wry grin. “No…Pretty sure that was my breakfast. Good cal on the extra peppers.”

  “Dad! The groceries don’t come til tomorrow.”

  “You’l be fine. There’re two slices left, plus that bag of whatever.”

  I grabbed a glass from the shelves and crossed to the sink. “What bag?”

  “There was a bag on the porch last night when we got in. Had the pizza logo on it. I stuck it in the fridge for you.”

  I blinked, frowning at the box he was eating out of. “But I brought the pizza in.”

  He shrugged, closing it. “I gotta get going. Mom already left. She told me to tel you she got the router figured out. Internet is up and running.”

  “She did? When?”

  Dad laughed. “Your guess is as good as mine. The woman never sleeps.”

  Glancing at the clock on the coffeemaker, he wrinkled his nose. “I’m going to be late.” He ruffled my hair before planting a kiss on my forehead. “Kitchen looks good, Mil ie. I’m impressed. Keep it up.”

  “Have a good day at work,” I said, trailing after him to the front door.

  “Hope it’s not another long one.”

  He made a face. “Think there are going to be a lot of those for the time being. Chin up, though.” Dad let out a little half-laugh-half-groan. “There are signs with that al over the hospital. ‘Chin up. Masks on.’ It’s bled into my subconscious.”

  “Sounds like the new ‘Keep Calm and Carry On.’ ”

  “We should make greeting cards. Get on that, okay?” A quick hug and he was off.

  I stood at the window, watching him leave and listening to the soft sounds of the empty house.

  Another day on my own.

  But at least there would be music.

  Maybe Weezer, I thought with a smile.

  My laptop was stil in the living room. The TV was useless without streaming, so I’d fal en asleep watching an old Hitchcock film, one of the few DVDs I’d hung on to in the move. Battery total y drained, I took it into the kitchen to charge.

  As the computer hummed back to life, I spotted the pizza box stil on the counter. In his race out the door, Dad had forgotten it. I was tempted to dive into the last slices for breakfast but then remembered the bag Dad had mentioned.

  Curiosity sent me to the fridge, where a Slice of Bliss bag sat innocuously in the middle of the empty shelves. I shoved the pizza back into the cold confines and took out the bag, utterly bemused as I peered inside.

  It was a book.

  A book on a box.

  I traced my fingers across its cracked spine. “Henry James,” I read aloud.

  A flutter of delight sparked within me and I knew I wouldn’t be getting many boxes opened today.

  Flipping through the tattered pages, I saw dozens of underlined sentences and notes scribbled in the margins. It looked just like my favorite books. Wel loved and thoroughly beat to hel .


  I set the book aside and turned to the box. A thick slice of German chocolate cake, dark and drizzling, peered up at me. On the inside flap of the box, a note was scrawled in thick slanted lines.

  You won’t find this in any textbook, but I have it on good authority Salinger once said that chocolate cake was Holden’s favorite. I’m off Wednesday—want to hang out? Six feet apart, of course. Luka.

  With a ridiculous grin plastered across my face, I picked up the telephone and dialed the numbers, fingers dancing over the rotary with impatience.

  “Hi, I’d like to place an order…Chocolate cake…two slices…For delivery.”

  The first time I met Daxton O’Brien, my dog Griffin peed on him.

  I was out walking Griffin and we were in the park near my house, across from the weird alcove with the community garden and the smal rock sculptures. The neighborhood has made it into an unofficial dog park, where it’s okay to let your dog off leash. It’s my favorite place in the world, because dogs. Way, way better than people. Low bar.

  I always try to get Griffin to run there, but he’s not a dog that real y understands play. I take him off leash and he just sits at my side, hoping for liver treats. Cut to him an hour later, staring at me with his mouth open and panting while I’m bingeing Top Chef on the couch. I’m like, You had your chance, buddy.

  We were alone in the smal , shaded, grassy square when a mini-parade of dogs marched by. I don’t mean like the dogs were on floats dancing, or there was a marching band and confetti; there were just six dogs.

  They were al attached by leashes to people, yes, but who sees people when you can look at dogs?

  In front was a gray Siberian husky, prancing like it owned the sidewalk.

  Then came a pair of Chihuahuas, yipping up a storm, one white and one black. Fol owing them was a caramel-colored Pomeranian that looked like it was wearing a large-col ared fur coat. Then a Weimaraner, al smooth and gray. And in the rear, an overenthusiastic doodle of some sort that was trying to sniff seven things at once. It looked a lot like my Griffin, only with black fur instead of apricot.

  The Pomeranian’s person, a middle-aged lady I’d seen before, wearing red librarian glasses, waved toward me. I waved back, hoping she’d keep walking. Nothing to see here. I just wanted Griffin to do his business so I could go home and actively avoid distance-learning by playing Design Home on my phone. Griffin is sort of indifferent to other dogs, sort of like me with people.

  I scanned them quickly. They were masked and appropriately distanced, and it reminded me of the one good thing about this pandemic: having a reason to steer clear of people. It can be hard to tel with masks, but the first four were clearly adults, and the one in back looked like a teenager, just about my age. One of their kids, maybe? He was skinny with blond hair and a long, thin face, and he was attempting to rodeo-wrangle the overenthusiastic doodle.

  The guy in the front stopped and cupped his hands over his mask, and warily I put my hand to my ear. He lowered his mask to his chin, entirely negating the purpose of the mask in the first place. He had a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache.

  “Your dog safe?” he yel ed.

  Safe? Like from the coronavirus? I was confused. I cupped my mask-covered mouth and yel ed “What?”

  “Does your dog play wel with others?”

  “Oh, um. Yeah, I guess. He’s…safe.”

  I got that churning in my stomach that comes with the proximity of people. Maybe it’s my body’s reaction to danger. Fight or flight, I guess they cal it. I tried to slow my breathing as the bunch of them strol ed over until they were about ten feet away. They simultaneously unleashed their dogs, and Griffin went charging up to each of them to say hel o. He sniffed the teen

  boy’s dog’s butt. He did that weird circle dance with the Pomeranian, where both dogs tried to get to the other’s behind.

  It’s always weird, that moment where your dog starts sniffing another dog’s butt, and you’re standing there with their human, and suddenly you’re uncomfortably aware of both of your butts, and it’s like, Hi there, other person with a but ! Fortunately, the older guy’s husky reared back in that let’s play position, and Griffin took off across the park.

  When he’s in the mood, the boy loves to be chased.

  I avoided conversation by turning my head to watch. As they ran in a large circle at the perimeter of the park, Griffin looked like a big pile of apricot-colored fur blowing in the wind.

  “Your dog is adorable,” the woman said.

  “Um, yours too,” I said, having no idea where her Pomeranian even was at the moment.

  And then it was quiet, which is the worst. Silence can be so awkward, but talking to strangers has never been in my skil set.

  So the silence stayed, and it was Satan incarnate. Sometimes when I’d go to a party and wind up smal -talking with someone, and they’d be droning on about how it was so hot in the summer—duh—or they hated doing homework, or something similarly banal, I would tune out, watch their facial muscles expand and contract, and I’d wonder what would happen if I just opened my mouth and started screaming.

  Probably not get invited back. Which would be okay, I guess.

  I glanced over at the guy my age, who was tal er and better built than me.

  I looked away, afraid he’d see me looking. He was clearly a “Normal.” It was obvious, from his red board shorts and yel ow tank top and sandals, that he was one of those people who effortlessly fit in.

  Normals are tricky. They had made my life a living hel , for two years, ever since eighth grade. You had to be careful around Normals, because sometimes they shape-shifted, like with Nimo back in February. My first. We were hanging out, and they drew me in by revealing their own supposed not-normalness. And then you let your guard down, and I guess maybe they get tired of whatever they were doing with you, and now they know al your darkest, most painful stuff. And they revert back to Normal without tel ing

  you, and they never talk to you again, and take your two best friends with them.

  Yes, you had to be very careful around Normals.

  Griffin came running back over, a wide grin across his face, panting. He trotted up to the boy al friendly, turned ninety degrees, lifted up his leg, and he peed.

  “Wha!” was al I could say.

  “Whoa,” the boy finished for me, jumping back.

  There was that split second before everyone started laughing where I actual y thought: Run! Just run, never look back, never see those people again.

  But then they did laugh, and I was stuck, and al the attention was on me, and I hated my life so hard.

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. Um.”

  Everyone was laughing, including the boy, but I was dying inside. “I’m so, um. He’s never, ever, ever done that before. Never ever ever. Sorry. Sorry.

  Sorry.”

  The boy shrugged, shaking his leg. The bottom of his red shorts and his leg seemed to take the hit. “I didn’t like these shorts anyway.”

  “He owns you!” the older guy was yel ing. “He peed on you, now he owns you!”

  And I was like, No, please stop talking.

  —

  I avoided the park the next morning, for obvious reasons. Instead I headed down to Pinchot, which is pronounced Pin-Chot rather than Pin-Cho, because America. Pinchot is the best street in al of Phoenix for walking a dog. Back in the day it was part of the New Deal. They subdivided land into one-acre properties and encouraged industrial workers to farm part time. Apparently, Eleanor Roosevelt planted some trees on it. That was like the 1930s version of Beyoncé planting trees today, so it was kind of a big deal. And now, nearly a hundred years later, there’s this incredible canopy of eighty-foot-tal Aleppo

  pines and Washington palms on Pinchot between 26th and 27th Streets. The whole street smel s like pine and fresh-cut grass.

  We lived a block north, where things smel ed decidedly less lovely and trees were sparse and mostly smal palms. Which was why I always walked on Pinchot.

/>   And as if the world were punking me, there they were, the same dog-walking brigade, or at least three of them, heading toward me. The woman and the man were up front and about five feet apart, and when I craned my head, I saw Griffin’s pee victim and his black doodle.

  I thought about running, and this time I almost did, but then the woman waved to me again, and I sighed and realized running away would make it worse. So I kept walking, like a man toward his executioners. And while I walked, I thought about funny things I could say about the fact that yesterday Griffin had used the boy like a fence post. I came up with, I’ve stopped al owing Griffin to drink water, so you should be safe.

  But when I approached them and opened my mouth, it burst out as

  “Drinking water, I’ve stopped…,” which didn’t make any sense at al .

  “Hydration is important,” the woman with the librarian glasses said, nodding, as if what I’d said was somehow a normal greeting to near strangers.

  I thought about fixing it, but the moment was gone, so instead I just stood there and held Griffin’s leash tightly, lest he do it again. Maybe the kid was some sort of pee magnet? Who was to say?

  Then Griffin did one of his Griffin things. Out of nowhere he barked, turned his head both ways, and, as if he were suddenly sure he was being stalked by a zombie, he jumped a ful one-eighty, his head leading the way.

  And then he jumped back, and just as quickly, he returned to normal, as if whatever had just possessed him had flown away. It used to scare me when Griffin acted nuts. Now I just understood it was Griffin being Griffin.

  “What the heck?” the older guy said.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, and a thing came to me as a coherent sentence, which was unusual but welcome in this case. “Griffin is basical y that kid in school who sits in the back, eating chalk.”

  The boy laughed and when he did so, his eyes lit up. I couldn’t see his mouth, but I imagined him with a smile where his lips pul up so high you can

  see his glistening gums.

  This led to some laughter and the other people saying various things, none of which I heard because I was playing back in my head the moment where I successful y said something funny, and in that way, maybe Normal, almost. And who was to say what Normal real y was? And then I came to, and they were al looking at me, and I realized: Me. I was to say. And as previously noted, saying is not my strongest skil . Especial y in front of a (potential y) good-looking boy (stupid masks). I am especial y tongue-tied in the presence of (hypothetical) long-faced beauty.