Aspen (18 page)

Ben cracks a small smile. “I should know better,” he says. “Since I have ADD and all.”

It takes everything in me not to ask him to define a word. Next thing you know, I’ll ask if he wants to have babies.

To further the torture of my life, I have to endure a Thanksgiving with Uncle Toaster. He brings over a bag full of dented cans of cranberry sauce that he found discarded behind the grocery store.

“I’ve decided to become a freegan,” he says, setting them down on the counter.

“What the hell is that?” I ask as I mash potatoes on the stove.

“I won’t be defined by the consumerist structures set up by the wasteful American government. There are people starving all over the world, yet we discard a can for being dented.” Toaster picks one up and pets it. “It’s not the can’s fault that someone didn’t take proper care of it.”

“So you’re finally admitting you’re a Dumpster-diver?”

“Aspen,” Ninny barks. She’s pretending to watch football on the couch so that she doesn’t have to help cook.

“I prefer freegan.”

“Well, I think you’re ‘freegan’ insane.” I go back to mashing the potatoes.

Not even Ninny touches the cranberry sauce at dinner.

Later, in my room, I’m flipping through pictures of Katelyn on Facebook. I’ve looked through at least 100 photos, reading the comments on all of them. I’m not exactly sure what I’m even looking for. But I am
absolutely
sure I’ve become a stalker.

My computer dings with a chat notification.

I hesitate, unsure if I should type something back. It’s been more than a month since Suzy and I hung out, and the truth is I miss her, too. She’s oddly loyal and fun.

I scan the comments below the picture of Katelyn pulled up on my screen and look for Suzy’s name. There’s a comment from Ben, but Suzy hasn’t written anything. I click to the next one. No Suzy. I go through 15 pictures, searching for a comment made my Suzy about Katelyn. She hasn’t left a single one.

The Grove rustles like a breeze is coming in my window, but it’s closed. And an odd smell wafts into my room. I turn and see Katelyn standing with one of my sketches in her hand. It’s one of Ninny sitting in our backyard, wearing a huge sunhat.

“Put that down,” I say. Katelyn shakes her head. “Put it down.”

She rips it to shreds. I run to stop her but she disappears and I fall into the wall, knocking my head. When I stand up, the sketch is back in its place.

I tell Suzy that I’d like to go shopping with her.

I stay up half the night, rubbing the small bump on my head and trying to find a single comment Suzy has made on Katelyn’s memorial page. I come up empty.

“Where should we go?” Suzy asks, looping her arm through mine as we walk out of physics. “I need an authentic tie-dye, not one I bought at Forever 21. I want it to smell like pot, not cheap perfume.”

“There’s this one place, but I’m not sure you can handle it,” I say.

“Oh, I can handle it.” Suzy bounces up and down.

We walk out to her black SUV, and I stand at the door, holding the handle. It’s cold in my palm. The vision of Katelyn ripping my sketch to shreds makes me hesitate.

“It’s open,” Suzy says, snapping me out of my trance.

Gritting my teeth, I slide into the passenger seat. When Suzy starts the car, I roll down the window.

“It’s freezing,” she says.

“You want a new shirt, right?” I glare at Suzy. She rolls her eyes and zips her coat all the way up to her neck.

We drive, Suzy shivering in the driver’s seat. She turns up the heat and holds her hands over the vent. I hang my arm out the window, resting my face in the breeze.

We park at the Crystal Dragon, a small boutique with tapestries hanging in the window. Just walking in the door reminds me of being little. The strong smell of lavender and patchouli oil hasn’t changed. I walk up to a shirt and press it to my face. All the clothes smell like the store. You have to wash something at least ten times before you stop smelling like a Phish concert.

Along the wall is a glass case filled with colorful pipes and bongs. On top sits dangly jewelry. Clothing racks are spread around the store, and tapestries cover the walls. The far back room is filled with posters.

“This is perfect,” Suzy squeals, already flipping through a rack of shirts.

“I bought my first Grateful Dead shirt here,” I say, holding a turquoise necklace to my neck.

“How do you even know about this place?”

“When I was little, Ninny liked their black-light room.”

“Your mom?” I nod. Suzy holds up a shirt to her small body. And then she asks, “What’s a black-light room?”

I put the turquoise necklace back. “I’m not exactly sure, but Ninny always came out of it very happy.” I lean my hip against the case of bongs. “It got shut down a few years ago.”

“My parents would never!” Suzy’s eyes get big as she shakes her head.

“Ninny never says never.”

A small round woman wearing a flowing dress and an anklet that jangles as she walks comes out of the back of the store, carrying a box of clothes.

“Can I help you?” She sets the box down on the counter.

“I need the perfect tie-dye,” Suzy says.

The woman smiles warmly. She looks like an aunt. Or what I envision an aunt looking like. Someone who squishes you into her soft exterior and smells like cookies and always has gum. “You’ve come to the right place,” she says.

Suzy and the woman walk around the store, looking at each shirt, dissecting Suzy’s personality. At one point, the woman says she sees people in colors.

“Like an aura?” Suzy asks, intrigued.

“Kind of.” Suzy’s color is blue, she says. “Not a baby blue. Ocean blue.” The woman waves her hand in the air like she’s drawing the color on Suzy’s body.

“I have a color?” Suzy gets even more excited.

The woman touches her arm and smiles. “Everyone has a color, baby. It’s just most people don’t know what it is.”

They scan the racks for a tie-dye with Suzy’s “color”. I go to the back room and flip through the posters, scanning the faces I know so well. Uncle John Lennon. Uncle Jethro Tull. Uncles Simon and Garfunkel. I know them better than any man who’s walked through my front door. Uncles Crosby, Still, Nash and Young got me through the three weeks Ninny was away in Taos. I’d cry at night as I listened to “Teach Your Children,” because the song isn’t really about parents teaching kids, it’s about kids teaching parents. And I hated that I needed to teach Ninny that the people who love you don’t leave.

When I get through all the posters, I walk back to the front to find Suzy.

“What do you think?” she asks, pulling a short-sleeved pastel-colored tie-dye from her bag. Her ocean blue color is speckled down the center in a large swirl.

“It’s great.”

Suzy presses the shirt to her nose. “And I got you this.” She digs to the bottom of the bag and pulls out a blue, pink and purple string-braided bracelet, like the kind kids make at summer camp. “A friendship bracelet. One for you and one for me.” Suzy grabs my wrist and ties it on me. Then she shows me her wrist, wrapped with an identical one.

“Thank you.” I smile.

“Friends.” Suzy taps her wrist against mine. Then she turns back to the counter and says, “Leona, what’s Aspen’s color?”

Leona puts her finger on her chin, scanning my body. When her brow knits and her eyes turn serious, I want to hide behind the counter.

“I can’t believe this.”

“What?” I ask.

Leona comes over to us, her anklet jangling as she walks, and grabs my shoulders. “Is everything okay, honey?” Her eyes search my face, concerned. I step back from her.

“Yes.”

“What is it, Leona?” Suzy asks, looking between the two of us.

“You have two colors. Yellow and grey. But not a light grey, a stormy grey.”

“What does that mean?” Suzy leans into me, her eyes big.

“There’s someone else here, too.” Leona looks around the store.

“Okay, thanks.” I grab Suzy’s arm, dragging her toward the exit.

Leona snaps out of her trance when the door dings. She smiles, a distant look on her face, and says, “Peace out.”

In the parking lot, Suzy stops, confused. “I didn’t see anybody else in there.”

“I think Leona spent too much time in the black light room,” I say.

“That is the coolest store I’ve ever been in.” Suzy takes her shirt out of the bag to admire it one more time. “It even smells real. I’m never washing this.”

I laugh half-heartedly. My eyes keep glancing back at the store, waiting for Katelyn to appear and show her stormy grey color. Or rip another one of my sketches.

“Want to get coffee?” Suzy asks.

“I should probably head home.”

“Please,” Suzy begs. “It’s been, like, forever since we hung out.” She flashes her wrist with the friendship bracelet.

“Sure.” I nod. But even in Suzy’s car on the way to the Unseen Bean, I can’t stop thinking about how Leona could tell someone is following me. Or maybe she was just high.

We order two chocolate macchiatos with whipped cream and Suzy pays. “I have a new favorite store, thanks to you.”

We take a seat and sip our drinks while Suzy asks me question after question about the Crystal Dragon and the Grateful Dead and how I know so much. I tell her about Ninny and the Widespread Panic concert, and how I’ve had so many uncles in my life that I’ve lost count, and how Jerry Garcia died too young and too brilliant and we miss him every day.

“Like the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor guy?”

“That’s Cherry Garcia. It was named after Jerry, the lead singer in the Grateful Dead.”

Suzy sits back in her seat, taking a long sip of her drink and licking whipped cream off the top. “I can’t believe you were born at a rock concert. That is so rad. Being born in a hospital is so boring.”

“But safer. Can I ask you something?” I say and lean in, making sure to display my friendship bracelet on the table. When Suzy nods enthusiastically, I say, “What did you really think of Katelyn?”

Suzy sits back in her seat, her eyes on her drink. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m just curious, I guess.”

Suzy eyes fill with water, like she might cry. I want to take the question back.

“Some days, I’m so mad that she’s dead.” Suzy sets her drink on the table. “That she left me.”

“But it was an accident,” I say, repeating Officer Hubert’s words. And I swear it was.

Suzy nods slowly, her lips in a tight frown. “Right.”

I sit back in my seat, having officially killed the mood. “Do you want to hear about the summer Ninny and I lived out of the back of her van and followed Rusted Root around the country?”

That perks Suzy up. Her cheeks brighten almost instantly. She leans in across the table, but stops halfway. “Oh, my God,” she says and kicks me under the table.

“Ouch.” I grab my shin.

“Sorry,” Suzy whispers.

“What is it?” I look over my shoulder. There, standing at the counter ordering, is Ben. As if he can sense us staring, he looks in our direction. Suzy waves her arm like a madwoman, motioning for him to come over.

“What are you doing here?” Suzy asks, when Ben gets to our table.

“Getting coffee.” Ben lifts his drink. “What are you doing here?” He says in the same tone.

“Aspen took me shopping for a new tie-dye. Do you want to sit down?” Suzy pulls out the chair between us. Ben doesn’t move. “We don’t bite.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” I mumble to myself. I slump lower in my chair.

Ben looks around the coffee shop and then takes the seat.

Suzy get her shirt out of the bag and lays it on the table. “So, what do you think? This lady at the shop—her name’s Leona—she’s so rad—says my color is blue, but not a baby blue, ocean blue.”

“It’s cool. I hear tie-dye is all the rage.” Ben sits back and sips his coffee. Then he turns to me. Our eyes meet, and the need to know what socks he’s wearing is back. “What did you get?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“Leona says Aspen has two colors. Yellow and grey, but not a light grey, a stormy grey.” Suzy leans her elbows on the table.

“Two colors? Are you that special?”

“More like that weird,” I say.

“I prefer the word ‘unique,’” Ben smiles.

Suzy eyes us and then says, “I need to go to the bathroom. Aspen, will you come with me?”

“What?”

Suzy comes around to my side of the table and yanks me up by the arm. “Come on. It’s not like we’ve never peed together before.” She pats Ben on the shoulder. “Don’t leave before we get back.”