Heart Thaw (6 page)

The fluorescent lights crackle. Trent’s hands hole up in his pockets, even though my brain is screaming for him to put them around my hips so insistently, I can’t believe he doesn’t hear my secret request.

“Mom wants you to come over for dinner tonight,” I say to break the silence.

He nods and doesn’t look at me. “I’ll be there after shift.”

I note the little changes since the last time I saw Trent. He has five tiny silver hoops pierced through the cartilage at the top of both ears, plus two in his right eyebrow. His hair is so long, the ends graze the bottom of his jaw when the longest piece swings forward, and if he lets his five o’clock shadow grow in for another two or three days, he’ll have a full, dark beard. He has a wide silver ring on his thumb, and when he slides it up, I realize it’s covering a tiny tattoo.

I grab his pinkie and pull his hand closer.

“You got a new tattoo?”

He raises his eyebrows and a frown tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“Yep.”

I pull the tip of my finger over it.

“It looks kind of like a barcode.”

“It’s, uh, it’s a comb.” The sharp angles of his cheekbones are pink. “I was pretty drunk, this friend of mine just got licensed, so it was basically a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“And you got a comb?” There are paint and ink stains all over his hand. I have to let go because I’ve already been holding on for too long. “Why?”

He looks right at me, his green eyes snapping.

“Stupidity. You know. What I do best.”

“Trent, that’s not what I meant last night,” I begin. He pulls his hand back and puts the ring firmly over his strange tattoo. “I worry about you.”

“It isn’t necessary.” He rocks on his heels. “I’m not a kid anymore. Or, if you’re going to worry about me, at least let me return the favor, alright? I didn’t fucking sleep last night, because I was half-convinced your corpse was rotting somewhere down by the tracks.”

“Sorry.” I smile as sweetly as I can, Christmas-Eve-and-I’m-sorry-with-a-cherry-on-top sweet. “I’m fine. It was pretty stupid of me to walk there alone, but if it was stupid for me to do it, why isn’t it stupid for you?”

He rolls his eyes.

“C’mon. Don’t make me say it and sound like some douchebag chauvinist.” I purse my lips, and he groans, pinches the bridge of his nose, and shuts his eyes tight. “You’re a girl, okay? A hot ass girl, and you walk around like you’re daydreaming half the time. Sure, we might have equal chances of getting jumped by a random crackhead, but I have a good five inches and fifty pounds on you, so I’ve got a better chance of fighting someone off. Plus I’m used to being out there, so I pay attention. I knew you were there the minute you leaned over the guard rail.”

A hot ass girl
. Every muscle in my body pulls tight.

“Point taken. I promise not to go walking the tracks alone at night. But you need to be careful out there too, okay? I know you’ve got your crazy observation skills and your quick wits to protect you, but it seems like an awful big risk to take for a thrill.”

Trent’s brow furrows and his lips press out thin and pale. He shakes his head, and his eyes search me up and down like he’s not sure who he’s looking at.

Barbie flits back with the coveted green bulbs in hand.

“Thank you so much.”

I’m relieved that I won’t have to face my mother without them, but now I have no excuse to talk to Trent anymore. Which is fine. I have to go see Georgia. I never even meant to bump into him. So it’s no big deal. 

Funny, because it
feels
like a big deal.

“Have a great holiday, Barbie.” I give her a little wave. “And, I guess I’ll see you tonight? Right?”

Trent nods slowly. “I wouldn’t miss your mom’s lumpy mashed potatoes for anything.”

His mouth curves up, but this smile is as artificial as a pink aluminum Christmas tree.

Chapter Four

I pay for my bulbs and get out of the store and away from Trent as fast as I can.

By the time I get to Dunkin Donuts, frustration and my lack of breakfast makes me a ravenous customer. It’s hard to stop at a dozen donuts, and I spend the drive to Georgia’s trying to decide if I want Bavarian crème, jelly, chocolate, chocolate frosted, or holiday sprinkled.

It doesn’t really matter, because Georgia won’t care if I take a bite out of every one. That’s what an amazing best friend she is.

I juggle the box, the cups, and my keys. I already have a key to her place, still bright because she hasn’t been in her apartment that long, and I haven’t been coming to it enough to make the key dull.

I pop the door open and stand in the middle of her little cozy nest.

“Georgie?” I call. “Are you up?”

I put the donuts down on her cheery little dining room table, decked out in a red cloth with white candles in crystal holders and a glinting metallic platter. Instrumental Christmas music plays softly from the living room. I walk among the chic microsuede couches, my wet shoes leaving footprints on the light blue and gold rug. I run my fingers over the pebbles scattered in the exotic wooden bowl on her glass coffee table, sniff the fragrant branches of her red and gold decorated Christmas tree, and head to the back wall where pictures hang in assorted—but matching—silver frames.

I stare at the relics of our past.

Her mother and mine, cheeks pressed together, smoldering cigarettes clutched in their long-nailed fingers, hair hugely permed.

Trent, tall and handsome, holding his high school diploma, Ella flitting in from the side to smack a kiss on his smooth cheek.

Danny looking right at Georgia while she smiles for the camera, her eyes slid sideways to catch a glimpse of him.

The two of us, babies, lying side-by-side in matching white onesies in some ancient playpen. She’s ten months older, a massive one-year-old with midnight curls, thick-lashed hazel eyes, and all the accessories of a cherub; chubby, dimpled hands, a sweetheart smile, those curls that wing out on either side of her head. I’m a teeny, scrawny two-month-old, bald as an old man, screaming until my face is lobster red.

My mother has an almost exact copy of this photograph, snapped a second before or after this one. This copy used to hang on Eileen’s wall, but—I remember with a fiery pain in my heart—there is no Eileen’s wall.

There is no Eileen
.

Tears bite at my eyes when I think about that cold, cruel fact. Still, all this time later, it
still
feels like a sick joke. I still wait to see Eileen push through the door, bringing grocery bags so she and Mom can cook together or her Avon samples so she can do some crazy glam-rock makeover on Ella. How can a person so full of life just be
gone
?

Georgia owns everything that’s left of her mother’s in this world now, and it’s not enough. It could never be enough.

My heart sinks, a net dropped into an empty goldfish tank.

I brush my fingertips over the photo of her and Mom before I head to the little cream-and-green bedroom I helped Georgia and Eileen decorate so many months before. But the sound of retching makes me stop outside the bathroom door instead.

There’s a bright gold light spilling from the crack at the bottom of the door. The crack is way too big for a tiny room where so many personal things go on. I’ve always been nervous to take care of business in Georgia’s bathroom, no matter how many peaceful bamboo plants and Zen pictures and Buddha statues she scatters around in there. The façade of peace only works if you’ve never been on the other side of the paper-thin door while someone was in there trying not to be heard.

I sit down on the wooden floor under the old iron doorknob and listen to another retch. I drop my head to my knees.

“Georgia? You okay?”

The toilet flushes and the sink turns on.

“Sadie? Why didn’t you call?” Her voice is falsely bright over the sound of the faucet running.

“When have I ever called before I stopped over?” My voice is lost in the space under my knees. When she attempts to push the door open, my butt blocks her.

I push off with my feet and slide up the wall, until Georgia and I are nose to nose through the crack in the door.

“You haven’t stopped by in weeks.”

The two inches of her mouth visible through the crack pulls down in a frown. I can only see one hazel eyeball, the mascara and eyeliner smudged underneath it.

“I’m sorry. My car has been shit, you know? Trent came to get me the other day, or I would have been stuck on campus alone for Christmas.”

The two inches of lips press together, sympathetic to my plight even though she tries to resist. My oldest, best friend always had a heart of pure mush.

She pushes the door wider, and, despite spending the last few minutes vomiting, Georgia looks lovely. She’s always beautiful, with wide cheekbones and a handsome Roman nose, plush lips, and graceful eyebrows. But there’s a dewy shine to her skin now.

A smile tucked in the corner of her mouth.

A love-bloomed glint in her eye.

“I take it you never went to the appointment?” I kick at her moulding, fancy and high for this little apartment. I wonder if Trent helped put it in with his home improvement store connections.

Georgia scratches her ear, her go-to annoyed tell. “I told you I didn’t think I could do it, Sadie. And you weren’t even here to go with me.”

I bite my bottom lip. “I would have been. I wanted to be, but I had two midterms, back to back. There was no way I could get out of them. And I thought Beth was going with you.”

“Beth isn’t
you
.”

Georgia swings the door open and stomps past me. She makes it as far as the kitchen, takes a gulping breath of air laced with the scent of warm donuts and sweet coffee, and runs back, knocking me to the side as she just barely reaches the toilet and dry heaves.

I pad into the bathroom behind her and put one hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. I rub in circles and pull her hair back over her shoulder with my other hand.

“Are you sick all the time?” My voice bounces around the black and white tiles.

“Just early in the day.” She burps a little and spits into the toilet.

“How…many weeks are you?”

I know.

I mean, if I stopped and thought about when she had the affair, when she noticed she missed her period, when she called me in a panic, I’d be able to piece it all together. But my brain is avoiding all that simple arithmetic and focusing on the geometry of smooth, calming circles on her back.

“Thirteen weeks this Friday.” She closes her eyes and swallows. “Well, that’s the real number. My gyno shaved two weeks off for the records because I got pregnant just before my insurance kicked in.”

“So you’re covered medically?”

I try to sound like one adult talking to another adult, but the truth is, Georgia has grown up in ways I can’t imagine. My insurance is covered through my school, and I don’t think about it. I rely on my mother to take care of claims.

But Eileen isn’t here to do that for Georgia anymore. Eileen isn’t here to know Georgia slept with a married guy. Got pregnant. Is making life hard, the way Eileen and my mother warned both of us life would be if we didn’t finish school and wait for kids.

Georgia stands, and my hand bumps over her backbone and falls away from her body completely. She rinses her mouth out and puts a pea-sized dollop of toothpaste on her brush. Her smile hits me from the mirror, tired and scared.

“I’m going to brush my gums out of my mouth by the time this baby comes.”

She brushes, and it’s so loud, I wouldn’t be surprised if she really did wind up rubbing her gums to the nerves. She throws the toothbrush in its little ceramic bamboo cup, bristles splayed from the over-zealous pressure she learned was no good in dental school, but can’t seem to let up on.

We go to the living room, and I flop on the couch while she opens her ice blue curtains and watches the snow fall. It’s moved beyond flurries, and I know we should go back to Mom’s, but there’s a reason Georgia has been scarce, and it isn’t only because the two of us are on opposite sides of this strange, wide rift.

“You haven’t told my mom, have you?” I ask.

She slides both hands down her peasant shirt and splays them over her stomach, which still looks totally flat to me. “She’ll know in a second, right?”

“You know she’s always had a sixth sense about babies. Remember when she knew Meredith was pregnant at graduation? And later on we figured out Merry was, what? Two weeks pregnant when Mom said that.” I pick at the fringe on her pillow until she turns to glare at me, and I stop destroying her pretty things.

“Will she hate me?”

Georgia’s only asking for drama.

“Ugh, are you kidding? She adores you. You know how many times she tried to trade Ella for you?” I smile at the memory of our mothers’ child bartering. “Ella and Trent. They would have been total juvenile delinquents if they were siblings.”

Georgia’s smile is soft. “Yeah. They got into enough crap as almost-siblings.” She sits gracefully on the edge of her coffee table and flashes me those big, dewy doe eyes that melt everyone’s heart and soul. “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

I sigh.

“No.”

She cocks an eyebrow, and I throw my hands up.

“Yes! Jesus Christ, George! The guy? Is he even, like, admitting it’s his? Are you going to have to do some Springer-style paternity test? And you just got this job, this apartment. Who’s going to watch the baby? How will this
work
?”

The tears half-fill her eyes so the bottoms shimmer. She blinks, and they trickle out, leaving wet trails down her cheeks.

“I never told him. He has a wife, he never wanted kids. He made that crystal clear. I don’t want to be some home wrecker.”

So many words pile up behind my teeth, I have to bite my lips together to stop them from spilling out.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Her hands twist around themselves over and over. “I thought it would be Danny, you know? And then...and then he was gone. And then mom died, and there was no one here for me.” She looks up, tears pouring down her face, her finger pointed at me, her mouth twisted furiously. “So don’t you
dare
judge me because I wanted somebody to be close to.”

It’s a threat that has no barbs, which makes it so pathetic, my throats tightens and aches.

“I’m sorry about Danny. And Eileen. So sorry.”

She takes a deep breath and when she looks up, her face is unlined, tear wiped, and placid, but her eyes sparkle so ferociously, I know my ‘sorry’ sounds as lame as I imagine.

“You know what was so weird about Danny? I expected it. A million ways. I thought he’d break his neck skateboarding or get killed drag racing. Or drink too much and try to swim across the lake and drown.” She shakes her head and all her curls bounce like a thousand silky, brown springs.

“But it was when he got his shit together, when he
finally
stopped screwing around and grew the hell up…” Her laugh sounds like paper ripping. “I told him it was a stupid job, but he said we’d make enough in one summer to put a down-payment on a house.”

Her shoulders buckle like they’re on a hinge.

I get up and pull her into my arms. She has to slouch because she’s taller than I am, but I pull her to the couch, make her lay her head in my lap, and run a hand over her springy hair until long, curling pieces tangle in my fingers.

“He was a good guy,” I whisper.

He really was.

I thought they were way too young to think about moving in. But Danny was set to make a good chunk of money, an adult salary they could live on, and Georgia was already talking about college with less and less desire in her voice. Then the truck flipped, down the ravine, heavy with too many logs that weren’t stable enough.

Danny was gone, and the last things I had said about him were all awful, all to convince Georgia to come to school with me and not get married before she could legally drink like some housewife from the fifties.

She knew I loved him. She knew I was trying to be who I always was in our relationship; the level-headed one, the one who looked out for our futures, the one who used my brain to cut through the throbbing, sticky-sweet emotions of the heart.

“This will be the third Christmas without Danny, and the first without Mom.” George’s tears and breath make my t-shirt hot and damp. “It’s like there were all these holes in me, and I feel like…I don’t know, like my soul was pouring through them and leaving my body. And this baby? It’s like she fills all the holes up.”

“You know she’s a girl?” I whisper, because babies are a miracle I know nothing about. The last baby I was around regularly was Ella, back when I wasn’t much more than a baby myself.

“It’s just a guess.” She nestles her head on my lap and takes my hand, runs it down her belly, and presses. “You’re not going to be able to feel anything. But she’s in there. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that a miracle?”