I’ll Meet You There

  I’d gone by my mom’s place a few times—I started thinking of it that way, as Mom’s place, instead of home. Billy’s truck was often there, but when it wasn’t, I’d slip an envelope filled with cash into the mail slot. No note or anything, but she’d know it was from me. We may have been on hiatus from each other, but I wanted to make sure she was eating. I knew we’d have to talk face-to-face eventually, but I wasn’t ready. Not with everything else going on. I’d have to check on her soon, though. I felt selfish and guilty being relieved at not having to carry her burdens.

  I’d started a nightly ritual of going through every piece of mail I’d ever gotten from San Francisco, trolling the website, e-mailing with my roommate. I created origami sculptures out of my acceptance letter and the pages I’d torn from the booklet they’d sent me. I didn’t know if I was preparing to go to San Fran or getting ready to say good-bye to the dream. It was like I couldn’t make a decision. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Mom wasn’t going to change anytime soon. And everything with Josh was over. So why couldn’t I just go?

  Josh and I had gotten really good at avoiding each other. I was only working graveyards now (Amy was ecstatic about my sudden desire to spend the cool Creek View nights holed up in the stuffy Paradise lobby), so the only time I saw him was by sheer accident. He’d look like he was about to say something, and I’d brush past him, into Market or out of Ray’s. He didn’t come to the gas station on weekends, and Dylan said he must have memorized her shift schedule because he hadn’t once come in while she’d been working at Ray’s.

  “Because he knows I’d give him a piece of my mind,” she said, which was true. You don’t cross the people Dylan loves.

  I saw Jenna Swenson a few times: pumping her gas or in the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s. Whenever we saw each other, she’d look away quickly, and once or twice I caught her staring at me. It occured to me that Jenna’s heart might be broken too. Maybe she felt just as used up as I did. When it came to Josh, we were both collateral damage.

  Still, each time I saw her, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly she had that I didn’t. It was stupid, I knew, but I hated the thought of her hands on Josh—of his on her. When these sorts of things came up, I’d retreat into my cave of a room and cut, glue, create.

  It was Blake, of all people, who tried to break the silence. I was at the gas station on a Saturday night, flipping through one of the glossy magazines we sold. I’d been there for three hours, and the lights were giving me a headache—that and the piped-in pop music. It was the kind of night when it felt like every stupid song was written for you, and I kept having this ridiculous fantasy that I didn’t even want to come true, of Josh walking in and telling me he loved me and somehow managing to sweep me off my feet. But my life had suddenly become a Taylor Swift song: breakups and heartache and other girls. I knew there was nothing he could say that would take me back to the moments before he left my room. And I didn’t think he wanted to go back. He obviously hadn’t been happy to be there in the first place.

  The electronic bell rang, and I looked up. For a second, my heart literally stopped because I thought it was Josh—somehow, I’d seen the eyes first. Those blue-green swirls.

  “Blake.”

  I didn’t have a problem with him, not really, but my voice betrayed how very little I wanted to do with his family and, if I was being honest with myself, a little disappointment.

  “Hey, Skylar. How’s it going?”

  I shrugged. “Slow. I’m waiting for all the drunk people to come in.”

  “What time does that usually happen?”

  “Anytime after ten.” I closed the magazine and moved over to the register. “You on pump six?”

  “Uh, no, actually. I sort of came in here to talk to you.” He fiddled with the Giants cap he was wearing and looked everywhere but at me.

  “About?”

  “You know.” He grabbed a bottle of 5-Hour Energy, rolled it around on the counter, tossed it from hand to hand.

  “I’m not a mind reader, Blake,” I said. I grabbed the bottle out of his hand and put it back on the pyramid display I’d made.

  He took off his cap, ran a hand through his hair. “Look. I don’t know what the deal is with you and my brother, but ever since … you know, the party at the creek and all, he’s—I’m really worried about him.”

  “Well, then, you should probably give Jenna Swenson a call. I hear she’s pretty good at cheering him up.”

  “Dude, Jenna’s a slut, and we both know that. Josh doesn’t give a shit about her.”

  “I’m not really sure why we’re having this conversation, but if you think it will impress me that Josh doesn’t care about the ‘sluts’ he uses, it doesn’t.”

  “Okay. Sorry I used that word. I’m just saying that he doesn’t … Dude, you know this is a really weird conversation to have with you. I mean, we’ve hooked up, and I have no idea what went down between you and Josh—”

  “Nothing happened,” I said. Of course everyone probably thought I slept with Josh and then got ditched by him so that he could mess around with Jenna Swenson on the same night.

  “Whatever. The point is, he isn’t the same since ‘nothing’—as you say it—happened between you two.”

  “What do you mean not the same?”

  Blake frowned for a second, then looked up at me, finally meeting my eyes. “He’d kill me if I told anyone this, but … He gets these nightmares. Like, really bad ones. From the war. Every night, Skylar. And when you guys were hanging out a lot, he wasn’t getting them. Or at least not like before—I wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night because my brother was screaming like he’d just lost his leg.”

  I looked down at my hands, clasping and unclasping them. No matter what he’d done to me, I’d never have wished that on Josh. It broke my heart. I thought of him by the pool, saying he was a waste of space. How could someone hurt you so bad but you still wanted to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay?

  “Look,” Blake said. “I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for Josh—he’s a Marine and a Mitchell and he can deal. It’s just … I feel like it’s Day One of him being home all over again, and I want my brother back. I want him to be, I don’t know, happy.”

  My heart sort of lifted at the brief image that flashed in my head of Josh being lovesick over me, but then I remembered he was a bastard.

  “Why are you here, Blake? Because I’m working, and this really isn’t the place for an intervention, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

  The door dinged, and a couple of kids came in and headed for the candy aisle. It looked like they were going to take their time.

  “Talk to him,” Blake said. “Please. He’s messed up. I know he’s sorry for whatever he did. Josh needs someone like you, okay?”

  Someone like me or me? Because there was a huge difference. Didn’t matter anyway—I’d already told him how I felt.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.” And I was—for Blake, for his family. I knew what it was like to see someone you loved suffering. “And I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me and Josh. I didn’t matter to him. Not much, anyway.”

  The kids finally walked up, each with a candy bar in his hand. Blake moved to the side, and I used my happy everything’s-great voice as I reached for their candy.

  “Hey, guys.” I rang up the bars, careful to keep my focus on the kids, my not-so-subtle message of go away to Blake. “Good choices.”

  The little boy with the five-dollar bill clutched in his hand said, “Thanks.”

  “Okay, Sky. I’m gonna … I guess I’ll see you around.”

  I nodded. “Yep. Night.”

  When the store was empty again, I buried my head in my hands. I hadn’t realized how much Josh had been helping me get through the summer until he wasn’t there anymore. I wanted him to ask me how the Sky was. And then I wanted him to make it stop raining.

  * * *

  Chris and Dylan sprawled on the cat pee co
uch in the Paradise lobby while I kept my post behind the front desk. Chris was leaving in a few days for Boston, and the three of us were trying to spend as much time together as possible. It was nine, the beginning of my graveyard, and we were just finishing up some Blizzards from Dairy Queen. I’d refused to get mint and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, even though it was my favorite.

  “I wonder if they have these in Boston,” Chris said. “Did you know they call milkshakes frappes?”

  “That’s weird,” Dylan said.

  “And they call sprinkles jimmies.”

  “Oh, God. You’re going to come back with some weird accent, aren’t you?” she said.

  “I don’t know of any Mexican-Americans with Boston accents. My family would never let me live it down.”

  “You all packed?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ll just do it the night before. I mean, it’s not like I have that much stuff to bring. It’s a tiny-ass dorm room, you know?”

  “It’s gonna be so cold there,” Dylan said. “Like, snow and everything!”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’re going to have a blast.”

  I pictured the deferral forms that were sitting on the little table in my room. I’d already filled them out and checked the little box that said I would not be going to San Francisco University until January or maybe even next fall, but I hadn’t been able to mail them yet. I was still waiting for a sign—something from the universe that said, very definitively, “Stay” or “Go.”

  Chris hesitated for a second, then said, “Have you decided about—”

  “Still on the fence.” I cut my pictures of the strawberry fields into tiny diamond shapes. They were next on my collage. “Being here with Marge is good, though.”

  Dylan blew on her toenails and applied a second coat of nail polish. “You do have a sweet deal over here. Well, except for the fact that Josh is still on staff. Why hasn’t Marge fired his ass?”

  I hadn’t told them about Blake’s visit. Part of me wanted to protect Josh, even though I knew he didn’t deserve it. I wondered if it was a coincidence, his nightmares going away when we were hanging out so much.

  “He’s a good worker,” I said. “Plus, it’s not like she knows about … that stuff. It doesn’t matter. We’re on opposite schedules anyway. Plus there’s always the chance he’ll stay in the Marines. He might be gone in a few weeks.”

  I hated how it made me miserable, thinking of him going. The only thing worse than having Josh around would have been never seeing him again.

  A pair of headlights swept across the window, and I heard the familiar sound of Marge’s 1960s VW bug. A minute later, the screen door opened and Marge walked in—with my mother trailing behind her.

  “Mom?”

  “Hey, baby,” she said.

  Marge motioned for Chris and Dylan to follow her to the pool. “Let’s give them a second.”

  They stood, exchanging a nervous look. When she walked by me, Marge patted my hand. “If we get any customers, just holler.”

  My mom stood by the door, like she was afraid to come any closer. She was thinner, paler, but she was clean and had dressed in a flowy skirt and beaded tank top I’d always thought she looked nice in.

  I slid off my stool and walked across the lobby, not stopping until my arms were around her.

  “I missed you so much,” I whispered.

  She still smelled like Mom. Even the trace of cigarette smoke that clung to her hair felt familiar and nice. She started crying, a silent sob that shook her body. I could feel her tears on my cheeks as I pressed her to me.

  “I’m so sorry, Sky,” she said in a choked voice. “So, so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It’s all okay now.”

  She hadn’t said anything, but seeing her outside the trailer, showered and dressed—I knew we were going to make it through this. I let go of her and took her hand, guiding her over to the couch.

  “You want anything from the vending machine—Coke or water or something?”

  She shook her head and patted the spot next to her. It was still warm from Dylan’s and Chris’s bodies. She ran her hand through my hair and tilted her head to the side as she took me in.

  “Are you okay, baby? You look”—she bit her lip—“older.”

  I couldn’t hold the tears in any longer. I let my head fall into her lap and sobbed like I had always wanted to when I was a little girl, after Dad died.

  “Shhhh,” she whispered. “Shhhh.”

  I let her run her fingers through my hair and rub my back. For once, it felt good to be helpless. After a while, I sat up and wiped my eyes.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  Her own eyes were wet too. “Look at us,” I said, gesturing to our blotchy faces.

  “I know. What a pair.” She squeezed my hand. “I really am, you know. Sorry.”

  “I know.”

  She took a deep breath. “Marge and I have been talking.”

  “Uh-huh.” I didn’t comment on how the last time I’d suggested she talk to Marge she’d used the phrase when pigs fly.

  “I wanted to make sure you’d have someone close by if you needed help with anything.”

  “Close by? What do you mean?”

  She took a breath. “Well … Billy has a job offer in Florida—a really good one. His friend is doing this thing with used cars. Fixing them and reselling. He said we could make two thousand a week, easy. Billy will keep an eye out for used cars to buy, and his friend will fix them up nice. I’d be the, I don’t know, secretary. Or something.”

  My whole body went still.

  “Florida?”

  “We’ll be making good money, and I can visit you—”

  I stood up. “You’re going. With Billy. To Florida?”

  “Baby, this is a good thing. A real good thing.” She smiled and reached her arms out to me, but I backed away.

  “How is this a good thing? Mom, it’s gonna fall through. Two thousand dollars a week? No way. And what will you do if it doesn’t work out?”

  And what about me?

  She looked at me, eyes wide, bewildered.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “I told you, I can take care of both of us.”

  “You’re going to college,” she said, her voice firmer than I’d heard in months. “Someone in this family has to make something of her life, and we both know it’s not gonna be me.”

  I leaned against the counter, letting the universe’s—God’s?—message sink in. Not sure if I believed it. Was I actually going to San Francisco?

  “But … Florida? I mean, how will I see you and what am I supposed to do for the summers? The dorms aren’t year-round.”

  “You can stay with Marge in the summers and on your breaks, she said so, or maybe you could come to Florida. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

  “I don’t know, Mom.” I stared down at the carpet, feeling like I’d been hit over the head.

  “This is a real good opportunity,” she said. “Maybe we could even send you some money—help out with your school supplies. Books. Or whatever college kids need.”

  That would never happen. Someone like Billy didn’t just suddenly make a good life for himself.

  “What about the drinking?” I didn’t want to fight tonight, but I had to know. Everything hinged on it.

  “Better,” she said.

  She stood in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders. “Do you know how proud I am of you? I don’t even have my GED, and look at you—scholarships and that working thing … what do you call it?”

  “Work-study,” I said. It was a grant from the school that guaranteed me a job on campus to help with expenses.

  “Right,” she said. “Work-study.” She kissed my forehead. “Everything’s gonna be fine. You’ll see.”

  It wasn’t, though. It felt like nothing would ever be fine again.

  “So, you and Billy are … serious?”

  Mom looked away from me, toward the gla
ss door that led to the patio. “Baby, Billy is gonna be around for a while, okay?”

  Billy. I never would have guessed he’d become the monkey wrench in my life.

  “I know you don’t like him—hell, I didn’t at first. Maybe when you get a little older, you’ll understand.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to understand. I want you to find someone like your daddy, but someone who maybe doesn’t drink as much. And I want you to be happy. Billy and I are just two lonely people that need someone. He treats me right and makes me laugh. And right now, that’s enough for me.”

  I thought of Josh and me, how we’d moved closer and closer over the summer. We were like my mom and Billy, maybe. Just two lonely people that needed someone. The ache in the pit of my stomach that I’d begun to associate with Josh heated up. I knew that wasn’t true for me—it wasn’t just because I was lonely. My feelings were real, whatever they were. But his weren’t, and that just plain sucked.

  Mom put a hand on my arm. “Sky, look at me.”

  I did.

  “I know you’re worried. But I won’t have you giving up your dream. Your father would kill me,” she added, with a little smile. She put her arms around me. “I love you, Sky. I love you so much.”

  I hugged her back. “I love you too.”

  I was going to school and being all but kicked out of Creek View.

  So why wasn’t I happy?

  JOSH

  We sit in a circle, young old men. Look into our eyes and you can see the war, how even though we’re home we never left. One dude doesn’t have arms or legs. Another has PTSD so bad he twitches all the time. Dude next to me just said his wife left him because she couldn’t deal with his “war shit”—the nightmares and the piss-poor memory because he hit his head too hard on the roof of a Humvee when a bomb went off. Another said he’s tried to kill himself three times. He says he knows he’s batshit crazy but he doesn’t know what to do about it, and a dude who fought in Fallujah says, It’s okay if you’re batshit crazy. As long as you’re batshit crazy functional. One of the older guys bursts out laughing and says he’s gonna tell his wife that next time she calls him a psycho. We have contests to see who has to take the most meds—a Marine sergeant wins: forty-three pills a day. One dude shows us the tattoo he got with the names of all his friends who died. It’s a long fucking list. We drink bad coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and the room smells like shit because fifteen guys are farting for two hours. Today it’s my turn to talk. I tell them how when you laughed, you’d hold your stomach and shake your head and that the last time I saw you laugh was when some kid grabbed his crotch and yelled, “I MICHAEL JACKSON!” Some of the guys crack up and the dude who lost an eye and both his hands says, I miss those little bastards. He’s smiling, which he doesn’t do so much. The therapist says, Can you tell us about the bomb, Josh? and I shake my head because not today, I can’t. And I just start shaking, shaking and I can’t stop and these guys who are all banged up inside and out, they say, It’s cool, bro; you’re doing good, man, real good; we got your back, don’t sweat it. And for a second I remember what it feels like to be thousands of miles away from home and fall asleep in a room with a bunch of guys and feel like a family and I don’t know which is better: remembering or forgetting.