I regret to inform you, dear reader, that they made good on their promise. For there are none so insistent on the virtues of love as those already in its thrall. Which is why I chose to set this story down for you.
You see, I am Zeke Zanni, and I am sorry to admit that I have deceived you. As you have no doubt figured out, this is, indeed, a story about love. And as I am in love, I have penned this tale in the hope that you should join me in this folly by falling in love with someone yourself. Because if we are all fools, then perhaps there is some wisdom in falling in love.
Audrey and I are lounging on the sandy banks of Foster Avenue Beach when she tells me she’s going to San Francisco.
Some people would beg to differ, but Foster Beach is the best beach in Chicago. A breeze floats up from the lake and skims across our bare legs and arms before moving over to the plain of well-tended grass shaded by tall, leafy trees, where people grill out and throw balls around. Down the sand from us, kids splash each other in the shallow water, their parents parked a few feet away with noses stuck in grocery store paperbacks. It’s not the type of beach people think of when you say “beach”—there’s no salt water, and the city is far from tropical. But it’s nice to sit here on a blanket in the middle of July, eating pastries with my cousin while we sun our legs.
“San Francisco? For a protest?” I ask, reaching into the paper bag between us for a cherry boat. It’s my favorite treat from the Swedish Bakery, the flaky pastry filled with dark, sticky-sweet preserves. I met Audrey on Clark Street around ten this morning and we walked straight from the bakery to the beach, leisurely strolling as we ate pecan rolls and scones.
“No,” Audrey replies. She was leaning back on her elbows, with her legs stretched in front of her, but she sits up when she says this.
I hold out the bag; she still has a mini loaf of banana bread sitting in the bottom. She shakes her head, and it’s only then that I notice her hands are clenched in her lap. That her lips, usually painted a berry red that stands out against her brown skin, are colorless and drawn in a tight line. I pause, too. I don’t dare lick the dollop of preserves from the tip of my pinkie, because I can feel it, the bad news in the warm summer air.
“I’m moving there … with Gillian.”
The pastry drops from my fingers and lands on the sand, cherry side down. Of course.
“She found a job,” Audrey says slowly, watching to see what I’ll do next. “A good job.”
What I do next is grab the sand-covered pastry. I don’t bother holding it around the edges. She’s leaving. The only person, besides my mother, who has ever understood me—really got me—is moving over two thousand miles away. California seems like another planet compared to Chicago. We won’t even be in the same time zone.
I squeeze my hand, let the preserves ooze onto my skin, staining my palm.
“Rashida—” Audrey begins, but I cut her off.
My throat aches from the lump that just took up residence, but I manage to get out, “I’m happy for you.” Because it is the thing to say to the cousin who has always been there for me. It is the mature thing to say, which is something I think about too often at the age of seventeen. I guess that’s what happens when you’re forced to grow up too early.
“You are?” Audrey relaxes, relieved by my lie, even as she looks down at the mangled pastry. “I was afraid you’d be mad at me.”
Mad isn’t the word. Disappointed? Possibly. But anything I express besides happiness right now won’t do anyone any good. She’s leaving because Gillian wants to leave, and she wants to be with Gillian. And Audrey’s not my actual mom, even if she took on the unofficial role of surrogate four years ago.
“It’s really only one year here without you, right?” I reply. “I mean, I’ll be going off to school at the end of next summer, anyway. Maybe I’ll end up out West.”
I’ve never considered living in California; the thought has never even crossed my mind, let alone my lips. But it’s what I needed to say to convince Audrey that I won’t break down when she leaves, and that’s more important than a few small lies.
“I need to toss this,” I say, standing up with the sad little cherry boat. The trash can is at the edge of the beach, where the sand meets the grass. I brush off the butt of my cutoffs, slip away from Audrey on bare feet, and throw the pastry into the can.
I hold my arm out in front of me as I walk. The jam has somehow worked its way up my skin, leaving a sticky spot near my elbow. Shrieking children and snoozing sunbathers line my path to the water, along with a few people dressed in jeans and long-sleeved shirts, as if they accidentally wandered onto the beach and decided to stay and sweat it out.
The lake water is cool at my feet, lapping over my toes and then frothing at my ankles as it rises. I walk in a bit farther before plunging my hands in. As I wash away the stickiness, I look across the water, at the small waves rolling so slowly it’s like they’re barely moving at all. Maybe I should keep walking—tread out into Lake Michigan and float away. Not like my mother floated away on an entire bottle of antidepressants, but just … to a life where I don’t have to keep watching people leave.
When I get back to our spot, Gillian is standing there, helping Audrey shake the sand out of our blanket. What is she doing here? And how did she get here so quickly? I wasn’t gone even five minutes. She’s good at sweeping in—she and Audrey have been together for barely a year, after all. I take a deep breath, pretend like I don’t notice the fake smiles plastered on both their faces.
“Hey, Rashida,” Gillian says, the smile increasing in breadth. “How are you?”
“Fine. Good,” I say.
Audrey tucks the thick square of blanket underneath her arm. She’s watching me again, and I know I should say something to make her and Gillian more comfortable, but I can’t.
“I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d give you guys a ride back,” Gillian says.
“Cool,” I say. Then, “Thanks.”
She doesn’t try to talk to me anymore. I trudge behind them to the car, watching her as I chew on my thumbnail. She has an athletic build—Audrey told me she ran track through college—and thick, dark box braids that touch the small of her back. Her skin is a light, light brown, the sort of ambiguous shade that makes people she’s never met wonder aloud if she’s biracial. She pronounces her name with a hard G that always makes me think of fish gills.
Gillian gets into the driver’s side of her old Toyota and unlocks the passenger door, which apparently doesn’t open from the outside. I wonder if they’re driving this car to San Francisco, if it will break down in every state they pass through, and if Audrey will regret saying yes to the move—to what would surely be a foreshadowing of their new life together.
“Hey,” Audrey says in a quiet voice before she opens the door. She touches my shoulder so I’ll look at her instead of staring down at the pavement. “I love her. I need you to know that I wouldn’t leave if I weren’t sure. But I am. I love her too much to not go.”
Love.
It’s such a bullshit word. She loves me, but that’s a different kind of love, and it’s not enough to make her stay.
* * *
Three weeks later, when Audrey’s apartment is stacked with boxes and her refrigerator holds a lone egg and jar of sweet pickles, I find myself at her parents’ house, nibbling on cubed cheese beside the dining room table.
Audrey didn’t want us to fuss over her leaving. It’s not her style. She hates drawing attention to herself, probably because of her work as an activist. She’s used to doing so much for others—organizing rallies, contacting politicians, raising funds for nonprofits that fight injustice. But her mother insisted on sending her off with a proper good-bye, so soon all of Audrey’s and Gillian’s friends and family and now-former coworkers will be gathered in my aunt Farrah and uncle Howard’s Rogers Park home.
It’s still early, and I’m still eating cheese, when I spot Audrey across the room, huddled in front of the record player
with Gillian, sifting through a pile of vinyl. Gillian squeals and holds up an album, and I watch Audrey lean in toward her girlfriend’s head to check it out. I pop a bite of sharp cheddar into my mouth and wish it weren’t so hard to be nice to the person my cousin loves. And it wouldn’t be so hard, if Audrey loving Gillian didn’t mean Audrey leaving us.
Music suddenly emerges from the speakers, and my uncle Howard walks over to the food table, bopping his head in time to the beat. “And they say you kids don’t have good taste in music. Not my daughter. My girl”—he snaps his fingers for emphasis—“knows the greats.”
“I’ve never heard this,” I say, shrugging and not smiling, because I don’t have to pretend I’m in a good mood for Uncle Howard.
He is unyieldingly cheerful, but not the sort of person who constantly reminds you to be grateful for what you have. He genuinely looks on the bright side of things, even after all the shitty stuff he’s seen, living in Chicago for nearly sixty years.
“Well, then you are getting a free lesson in classic Motown.” He pulls on the brim of the tweed Kangol hat perched on his shaved brown head. “The Marvelettes—one of the greatest girl groups of all time.”
“Better than the Supremes?”
He gasps and pretends to look over his shoulder, then leans in close. “Don’t ever let your aunt hear you say that. It’s a hot debate around here.” I smile, but only a little, so he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “San Francisco will be nice to visit, yeah? We can get out of here when it’s all nasty and cold.”
I glance over at Audrey, who’s standing alone at the record player now, staring down at her phone. She always looks pretty, but she’s dressed up tonight in a black lace minidress with long sleeves. Her dark hair is sleek, pulled back into a tight bun. And the lipstick is back.
“Isn’t San Francisco kind of cold anyway?” I say, remembering the time my mother came back from an art show held there in August and said she’d had to buy a sweater during the trip.
Uncle Howard shoots me a smile that assures me he knows my grumpiness has nothing to do with him before he starts in on the bowl of olives.
I walk to the kitchen for a glass of water but stop abruptly in the doorway. Gillian is standing at the counter with a guy, their backs facing me, and I consider turning and walking out before they see me. This is a party to say farewell to her, too, but I don’t have anything nice to say to Gillian, so maybe it would be better if I just avoided her.
But then my foot presses on a squeaky part beneath the linoleum and they both swivel around. And I’m stuck.
“Oh, hi Rashida.” Gillian’s eyes are as bright as her voice. A blue plastic cup sits on the counter by her elbow, next to an open bottle of vodka and a jug of orange juice. “This is my brother, Pierre.”
First, I notice the dimple in his chin. It’s so perfectly sculpted that I want to touch it to see if my finger would get lost. But every part of him is worth a second glance, from his rich, dark skin to the black-framed glasses on his face to the soft brown eyes behind them.
“Hi.” He crosses the room and sticks out his hand. “Rashida? Nice to meet you.”
I knew Gillian had a brother, but I didn’t know he was my age. Or that he looked like this. I glance at his short, neatly trimmed Afro and think about how soft it must be. He smiles, showing teeth that I’d be sure had been subjected to braces except that one on the bottom is just a little bit crooked.
Gillian coughs and giggles at the sink, and that’s when I realize Pierre is still standing there, holding out his hand, and I’ve not moved or even said a word. I’m simply staring. I brush my fingers over the front of the full, flowered skirt that stops a few inches above my knees, then shake his hand. I smile at him briefly, my gaze shifting back to Gillian, who is taking a long drink from the blue cup, before I say, “Nice to meet you, too.”
Gillian gestures toward the vodka. “Want a drink?”
I give her a funny look. “You can’t be serious right now.”
“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I make a mean screwdriver,” she says, laughing.
“Well, I think it’s a pretty terrible idea, Gillian. My family is here.”
Excluding my father, of course. He was supposed to be here by now, but he must be having too much fun at dinner with Bev. Which makes me want to take Gillian up on the offer of the drink, after all. But I don’t actually like booze that much. I’ve choked down a beer and had a couple of cocktails, stealthily made with the spoils of unattended liquor cabinets, but alcohol mostly makes me sleepy.
Pierre glances at me with a furrowed brow, as if he can’t believe how rude I was to his sister.
She doesn’t seem to take offense, though, or if she does, it’s hidden behind the vodka. She smiles the same type of smile that she wore at the beach, caps the bottle, and says, “You know where to find me if you change your mind,” before exiting the room.
I slide past Pierre to grab a bottled water and think I should say something—anything to get rid of that look on his face—but I don’t know what to say, so I walk away, too.
* * *
Aunt Farrah is sitting at the bottom of the staircase on my way to the bathroom. She’s not preoccupied with anything, just sitting and staring down at her hands, but there’s a sadness to the way her body leans into the railing, so I take a seat beside her. A huge family portrait hangs in a wooden frame on the opposite wall—Farrah and Howard and little Audrey, when she still wore pink barrettes in her hair.
I rest my head against her shoulder. “I kind of want tonight to be over, but then I don’t, because that means we’ll only have another couple of days before she leaves.”
Being around Farrah is easier now, but at first, after my mother was gone, I was uncomfortable looking at my aunt. They were sisters, and they were so much alike. Not in looks—my aunt is curvy, like me, with boobs and an ass, where my mother was tall and slim. I have my mom’s russet-colored skin, brown with red undertones, and Farrah has the same medium-brown complexion as Audrey. But they share so many mannerisms that I’d never noticed before, like the way my aunt tugs on her ear when she’s thinking hard about something, or how she chews on the stem of her eyeglasses when she’s anxious.
Farrah probably should have been the one to take over my mothering, but Audrey stepped up before anyone else could claim the spot. She’s seven years older than me, which used to seem like such a big difference, but the gap feels smaller now that I’ll be a senior in high school. And maybe that’s why she’s leaving. Maybe she thinks I’m old enough to no longer need her.
“I know, baby.” Aunt Farrah sighs. “I keep thinking she’ll change her mind or tell us it was all a joke. Howard says I have to let her go; she’s twenty-four years old. But it’s not that easy for mothers. It never is.”
She realizes what she’s said at the exact moment my body stiffens. And I want to run away, to stop being the one who makes people second-guess what they say, but she puts her arm around me and pulls me close.
“You know I’m here for you, girl.” Aunt Farrah smells like strawberries. “Anytime you start missing her, you come over or call or do both, okay?”
The her could be my mother or Audrey, and I worry that the combination of missing them both will be too much for me.
* * *
A few minutes later, I run my fingers under the cold tap in the bathroom and press them to the sides of my cheeks, the hill of my forehead. I fluff my hands through my hair, which is short and black and big and curly. Then I rummage through my aunt’s medicine cabinet, same as every time I’m at her house.
I hold my breath as I look to see if anything has changed. There’s a sepia-toned bottle of melatonin. Multivitamins for women. Blood pressure medication. But still no antidepressants.
I breathe out in relief and am just replacing the orange pill bottle when the bathroom door bursts open. I startle and drop it onto the tiled floor, where the top pops off and Aunt Farrah’s blood pressure meds go scattering in every direc
tion.
“Shit.” I don’t even look up before crouching down to collect them. It’s bad enough to go through my aunt’s medicine cabinet on a regular basis, but to have been caught doing so by—
“Let me help.”
His feet give him away. Black Chuck Taylors with dirty white laces and ballpoint ink winding around the sides of the rubber soles. I noticed them in the kitchen, but I was too far away to read what they said. Now I’m too embarrassed to take a longer look.
“Thanks.” I move aside the bottom of the shower curtain to rescue a few pills.
I expect Pierre to apologize for not bothering to knock, but he’s become as cranky as me in the last half hour. “You know, whatever you’re feeling … you shouldn’t take it out on my sister,” he says, bending down to sweep his hand around the base of the pedestal sink.
“Excuse me?” That’s enough to make me look at him. “She was offering alcohol to a teenager at a family party. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“First of all, it’s not a family party—it’s a party. This is for Gillian’s people, too.” He stands and sets a few pills on the wide lip of the sink. “And you aren’t seriously concerned about the drinking. You were being a jerk to her.”
My mouth opens to tell him he’s wrong, but everyone in that room knows I was a jerk, most of all me. Still. I’m not quite ready to admit that out loud, and especially not to him.
“I’m allowed to feel how I feel,” I say, just barely holding the orange bottle steady enough to drop in the collected pills.
Pierre frowns and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I never said you weren’t, but you don’t have to be rude to my sister. You’re not the only one who’s upset about the move. You’re being dramatic. It’s not like they’re dying.”
At that, my entire body starts shaking. I’m still able to secure the lid and shove the bottle back into the cabinet. But he notices. And he starts to say something, reaches for my arm, but I slip past him wordlessly for the second time this evening.
And somehow I manage to get out of the room without telling Pierre to go fuck himself.