The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

  Bodie is in the kitchen when I get back. I’m not expecting him to be. He usually takes the world’s longest smoke breaks. He sees me holding his pencil case.

  Sometimes my brain thinks faster than I even know it can, because I say, “Bodie, you must have dropped this. I found it on the floor under one of the tables.”

  “Shit, Pilgrim,” he says, “you’re a lifesaver. That’s like my soul right there.” And then I feel awful, because the way Bodie feels about his pencils is totally the way I felt about my guitar.

  “Favor?” I ask. I can’t stop now just because I feel bad.

  “Anything,” he says, so stupid grateful that I saved his pencils.

  “Can you cover for me for like ten minutes? Girl trouble,” I say, knowing Bodie is squeamish about those things. He blushes for hours after Carly makes him restock the tampon machine in the bathroom. And as much as it embarrasses me to embarrass him, my desperation makes me brave.

  * * *

  I run to the art supply store, buy a can of something called fixative, spray my license in the alley, and dump the can in the dumpster. Mark Conrad says the fixative is what separates the pros from the amateurs, because it makes it really hard to rub the fake numbers off.

  — Chapter 24 —

  Carly is in a mood today. She’s always in some kind of mood. I’ve never worked a day with her where the way she was feeling didn’t change the air around her one way or another, but this mood is especially bad.

  At first I worry it’s because I took a really long break to get the fixative, because maybe Bodie didn’t cover for me well. But Carly’s eyes are lined with super thick black liner and dark shadow. I’ve pulled that trick before, so I know it’s not always a fashion statement so much as a way to cover up dark circles and puffy lids. When I don’t let myself get distracted by all that black, I can see how red her eyes are.

  “Stop staring,” she says, and opens her mouth all slack-jawed and dopey like she’s saying I look like that.

  She’s almost always nice to me. It’s been her and me against the spoiled kids. But this is one of those moments that gets me feeling shaky and teary and embarrassed even though it shouldn’t. I’ve handled worse. Why would it matter for Carly to look at me funny? I turn away and distract myself by wiping down the espresso machine, which keeps me busy enough, because I’m the only one who ever bothers to do it.

  * * *

  After lunch, the phone rings and it’s some girl for Carly. She says her name is Rosemary and instead of letting me take a message, she says she’ll hold while I get Carly, as if we have one of those fancy phones with a hold button and I won’t be balancing the receiver in an empty coffee cup.

  I go outside to look for Carly. She’s crouched against the wall, perched on the toes of her combat boots, sucking at her cigarette like it’s a lifeline, spitting smoke into the air with force. Icicles from the overhang drip on her like rain and that raccoon makeup is streaming down her face. Her tights are ripped. With Carly, you never know if she wanted her tights like that or it happened by accident, but something about her ripped tights makes her look extra sad.

  “Phone,” I say, trying hard not to stare, pressing my lips together as soon as I get the word out.

  Carly holds her cigarette in her teeth and wipes her cheeks with both hands, smearing black all the way to her ears. “Who is it?”

  “Rosemary.”

  “I don’t want to talk to her,” Carly says, her words garbled by a sob. She tries to stand, but her foot slips and she falls to her knees on the icy gravel.

  I run over and wrap my arms around her so immediately that it shocks me. “Okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”

  She cries into my shoulder. I help her stand. Her knee is scraped up, bloody.

  “I’ll go get the first aid kit,” I say.

  “They can’t see me like this.” She tips her head toward the kitchen door. “It’s hard enough.”

  She looks so small. She’s short, but all her bluster and brightness made her seem big. Now she looks like a lost kid.

  “I’ll be quick and quiet,” I say.

  “I just want to leave,” she says, and her face crumples.

  “We can go get my car and I’ll drive you home.”

  I open the door to the kitchen and yell to Bodie that he needs to watch the register until Kelsye comes in for her shift.

  “Where’s Carly?” he yells back.

  “Supplier emergency,” I yell, and herd Carly down the alley, hoping that whoever Rosemary is, she’s hung up the phone so Bodie won’t end up talking to her.

  “I’m so stupid,” Carly says when we get to the end of the alley. The sobs break through again, even though it looks like every single cell in her body is fighting to hold them back. “I don’t even have any place to go.” Blood from the scrape on her knee is soaking through her tights; bits of gravel are stuck to her skin.

  I keep my copy of Adam’s key and my car key tucked in my left boot at all times, just in case. So I don’t even have to go back for my bag. We walk down Aurora Street to avoid the front of the cafe. Carly tries hard to pretend her knee isn’t hurting, but I catch her wincing when we cross Green Street and she has to step up on the curb. I grab her hand as we climb the hill on Hudson, because I don’t know what else to do, and I think about all the times I wished someone would hold my hand when I felt defeated. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but when you feel like that, sometimes having to say it out loud is the worst part.

  We get to Adam’s and Carly doesn’t even look at me weird when I lean against the handrail on the front step to dig the key out of my boot. She’s stopped crying, but she keeps wiping her eyes and the smudged makeup makes her look like a cartoon bandit. She stares up at the building.

  “You live here?” she says.

  “I’m staying with a friend,” I say as I open the downstairs door, not knowing if it’s okay for her to know. Not knowing if I want her to. Just because she’s sad, it doesn’t mean I can trust her.

  “You know Adam”—she points to her head—“with the hat?”

  “Yeah,” I say, worried about what she’ll say next—what there is to Adam that she knows and I don’t.

  “I think he lives on Hudson somewhere.”

  “He does,” I say, turning my back as I walk up the stairs.

  “Oh,” Carly whispers.

  I unlock the door to the apartment and hold it open for her.

  “It’s funny,” she says. “I wouldn’t have thought… But, you know, he’s a really nice guy.”

  “He is,” I say.

  I show her where Adam keeps the band-aids and iodine. “Do you need help?” I ask, and she makes that dopey face at me, like I’m being ridiculous. But this time it doesn’t hurt my feelings, because I know we’re on the same side.

  I get her a Coke and a hand towel from the linen closet so she can wash her face. And then I pull a pair of my clean pajama pants from a drawer Adam cleared out for me. They’re new. Pink flannel with blue cups of steaming coffee all over, like something you’d see the main character on a sitcom wear. And I’ve been so proud of them since I bought them, but when Carly comes out of the bathroom, I feel silly offering them to her.

  “I figured your tights were wet,” I say, handing them over.

  She looks young without all the makeup on. She takes the pants from me and pops back in the bathroom. When she comes out again she’s wearing them, and they look ridiculous under her ripped black dress and silver mesh sweater. Her tights are hanging on the radiator to dry, and her boots are on their sides on the floor.

  I don’t know how to act or what to say. We plop down on the futon and put our feet on the trunk, taking swigs from our Cokes. I never had girlfriends. Too many people whispered about my dad and his gambling and my mom leaving and the motorhome. If I ever did get invited to some girl’s house to play after school, she was never allowed to come to mine, so eventually she got to be better friends with someone else—someone whose mom made
cookies and was there when she got home from school, someone who had birthday parties to invite her to. I had Matty, and Margo was my friend too, but that’s different. It’s not the same as getting to be friends with a girl your own age.

  “So, Rosemary,” Carly says, “told me she couldn’t be with anyone who wasn’t out.” She reaches over to pick at the cracked leather on the trunk. “It’s not like I was particularly in, I just wasn’t all the way out, you know?”

  I nod, but I don’t know. I’m not sure if she’s talking about a club or a gang or a game that she’s not in or out of. But then she looks at me, and I can tell that the way she feels is the way I felt when I left Matty. That it’s that kind of loss, and I start to think that Rosemary must be her girlfriend.

  There aren’t gay people in Little River. I’ve never met one, and I never even thought about women having sex with women until just now. Gary would mouth off about the homos who were ruining America, but he was talking about men who sleep with other men, which I know, because I looked it up at the library. I expected homos to be some kind of robber barons or corrupt politicians or evil wizards and it was kind of a disappointment to learn that they were just men who slept with men. I couldn’t figure out how that was ruining America, but most of what Gary said never made much sense to me anyway.

  I want to say something to Carly, but I don’t know what. And as much as I’m not sure how I feel about this girl wearing my pants, crying over a breakup with another girl, I know she hurts and I wish she didn’t.

  “I get worried I’m going to lose her,” Carly says, and her voice wobbles. “So I come out. Like completely out. I tell my parents.”

  Suddenly she’s crying so hard that I feel like I’m going to cry. She can’t say words and she’s curled up stiff like the sobs are taking everything from her.

  “He told me I’m not his daughter,” she says finally. “He told me no way he made a dyke like me.”

  I hold her and I tell her I’m sorry and I tell her she’s better than him, because how can I not? And I start to hate Gary. Really hate him, because he’s exactly the kind of person who would say something like that to his daughter if he had one.

  “She doesn’t understand,” Carly says. “Rosemary… so easy for her with her New York City parents who practically wanted her to be gay, because it’s like completely and totally in this year. I’m from Allegany. My dad’s a teamster. I knew better.”

  “What did your mom say?” I ask, which is bad of me, because I’m always curious about people’s moms and my question is more for me than for her.

  “She can’t ever disagree with him, you know?” she says, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “She can’t ever stick up for me. Not for anything, so why did I think she’d tell him off or tell me she’s fine with it, that she loves me, you know?”

  “My mom left when I was six,” I say. “And my dad’s an asshole.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “I’m just telling you so you know that I get it,” I say, “that I know how it hurts. Not so you’ll feel sorry for me.”

  She blows her nose into a wad of toilet paper she’s shoved in the pocket of my pajama pants.

  “I’m not good at crying,” she says. “It’s either nothing ever, even when I should be crying, or it’s like a three-day explosion. I hate it.” She takes a deep breath, determined to collect herself, grabs the remote and turns on the television.

  We watch a Spenser: For Hire rerun and make fun of the puffy-sleeved satin blouses Spenser’s psychologist girlfriend wears. Carly grabs my hand and holds it, and you’d think it would be weird, but it’s not, because it’s not about anything other than the fact that she really needs a friend.

  * * *

  When Adam comes home, we’re out on the fire escape so Carly can smoke.

  “Hello?” he says as he walks in the bathroom and peeks out the window. It’s hard not to jump up and run inside to kiss him, but I don’t want to make Carly feel weird, or rub in the fact that I have someone when she just broke up with her someone.

  Carly stiffens, like she’s been caught.

  Adam looks confused, but I can also tell that he gets that she’s been crying. “Hi, Carly,” he says, trying hard to act like it’s normal that she’s here so she won’t feel uncomfortable. I’m proud of him. “We were going to order pizza from The Nines tonight. Does eggplant work for you?”

  “Sure,” Carly says, and her back loosens up.

  Adam tells Carly she can stay as long as she needs to. I want Adam to myself again, almost as soon as he offers, but it’s nice that we can do this for Carly. I finally get to have a friend over. I finally get to be a friend.

  We eat pizza and drink beer and watch 90210, lined up in a row on the couch: Adam, me, and Carly. I almost tell them that it’s my first sleepover party, but I think it would be too weird.

  * * *

  Carly sleeps on the futon. She snores. Adam and I lie in bed and giggle every time she gets particularly loud. We have a witness to us now. It’s funny the way we just went to bed like that’s who we are. We’re together and we sleep together and being open about it makes it so much more real. I love it and it terrifies me at the same time, like how I felt when Matty and I climbed to the roof of the high school to watch an eclipse and I stood with my toes at the very edge.

  “Looks like you’re in the habit of taking in lost girls,” I say, poking Adam’s shoulder.

  “You’re the only one who gets to stay forever,” he says.

  * * *

  When Adam and I wake up, Carly is still sleeping, so we tiptoe around, trying to avoid the floorboards that are known creakers. Adam makes a full pot of coffee and a huge stack of pancakes, which amazes me, because I didn’t even know we had the right ingedients.

  “I wanted to make them shaped like something,” Adam says, waving the spatula at the pan, “but they all ended up looking like pancakes.”

  When Carly wakes up and stumbles into the kitchen, with puffy eyes and her black and purple hair sticking out at every angle, Adam offers her pancake-shaped pancakes, and I pour her a cup of coffee.

  “You guys pre-caffeinate too?” she says, smiling at us. “You two are cute, you know. It’s nice.”

  Adam cuts orange slices and Carly and I set places at the little card table in the kitchen that Adam and I hardly ever use.

  After breakfast, Adam and Carly and me walk to Decadence together. When we hit the brick walkway of The Commons, it strikes me as funny—the three of us, side by side, like we’re on our way to Oz and short a lion. And at work, Carly is different. She’s chatty. She winks at me when the absurdly picky lady comes in and takes five minutes to get her full order out. She makes me a latte and tells Bodie to watch the register and we take her smoke break together, sitting on milk crates in the alley. She tells me she feels like an idiot, but she really misses Rosemary. She tells me she knows there’s no way it will ever work out for them now, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s scared to be alone.

  “I think maybe everyone is scared to be alone,” I tell her. “Maybe when you get down to it, that’s why everybody does everything. Maybe all we’re doing is trying to be less alone.”

  “Are you sure you don’t smoke up?” Carly says, laughing. She taps the side of my boot with the side of hers.

  “I sing,” I tell her. “Or I used to. Got to protect the pipes.” Then I realize it was a rhetorical question. I’m not good with those. Someone asks me something and I always feel like I should answer one way or another.

  “Why don’t you sing now?”

  “My dad smashed my guitar.” I tell her tiny bits of me. Little River, Margo, the diner, the boy. Puzzle pieces, but not too many. Enough that it helps—that it feels like I let some of the steam out.

  I’m telling her about Matty and the wife he wanted me to be when Bodie peeks his head out and says, “Can I go to the kitchen now? Psycho chick is back.”

  “Which one?” Carly says.

  I think
it’s another rhetorical question, but Bodie says, “The one with the nipple ring.”

  “People have nipple rings?” I blurt out. “Ouch! Why?”

  Bodie and Carly laugh.

  “That’s what you get when you love ’em and leave ’em, Bodes,” Carly says, smacking Bodie on the back when she gets up. She stomps out her cigarette and goes inside.

  “People pierce lots of things, Pilgrim,” Bodie says as I walk past him, and I wonder if he has any rings in strange places. “You’d be surprised. That girl, nutty as a fruitcake, but wow. Crazy, crazy in bed.”

  When I get behind the register again, Carly is taking an order from some girl who looks like the picture of normal. Shiny brown hair in one of those perfect ponytails without any flyaways, an Ithaca College sweatshirt, and a plain old pair of jeans. Carly raises her eyebrows to me to let me know it’s the girl. It’s so weird, the way that even the most ordinary looking people can hide things.

  When the girl leaves, Carly calls Bodie out of the kitchen and makes him swear on a stack of supply catalogs and sign an oath on a napkin to promise that he’ll stop being a manwhore. We pin the napkin to the corkboard by the phone, laughing so hard we’re crying.

  I, Bodie,

  will curb my general whoritude

  and work to cultivate better taste in romantic partners

  and better common sense overall.