Nothing Like You (17 page)

“So, I’m just going to ask you to take a few deep breaths.” He pushed the red button on the tape recorder.

I nodded and inhaled a couple of times in a row.

“Don’t forget to exhale. Breathe.”

I giggled nervously. I tried again.
Inhale, exhale.

“Good.” He closed his eyes and took a raspy, loud breath. Then he didn’t do anything for a little bit. He just breathed with his eyes shut. I watched him, halfway expecting he’d start talking in tongues, but after a minute or so he just looked at me and said, “Yes and no answers only, okay?

I nodded.

“Keep yourself open. You may have someone specific you’re hoping to hear from, but someone else might come through with a message instead.”

“Okay,” I said. “Wait, though. Wait?”

He looked up.

“I don’t want to be told anything bad. Like, when I’m going to die or anything. Can you not tell me that kind of stuff?”

“This isn’t that sort of reading. I promise. Nothing bad, okay?”

I relaxed a little.

Frank took a few more breaths, then started with, “I’m getting the letter
A
.” He said it sounded like an
A
, like the name
Anne
or
Annie
and did that make sense to me? And
yes, it made sense. Mom’s mom’s name was Anna, and she’d died the year before Mom from a stroke in the tub.

“The
A
name has a male
K
with her. A contemporary. Meaning a brother or a husband or a friend.” Quite possible, since my grandmother had eight siblings, but I’d only known one: Auntie Jean, who’d died when I was eight from a massive coronary. She’d been alone at the time. My grandmother had found her on the floor clutching a rolling pin.

I didn’t know any
K
s, though.

“There’s a cancer death,” he said next. My heart sped up. I leaned forward, put my hands on my thighs, and said, “That’s right, yeah, cancer.” And then he said Mom’s name. Well, not her name, exactly. At first he just said, “Bear.”

“That’s close,” I whispered. And he went on to say it two or three different ways as if he’d heard it wrong the first time. Then, finally, after a few deep breaths—a few eye blinks and cracked knuckles—he said
Barrett.
Mom’s name.
Barrett
. I got teary and hot. Which is so embarrassing, crying in front of a complete stranger—a middle-aged man with a beard, no less—but that’s the way it happened, so
hey
.

“Here,” he said, handing me a tissue. Then, “Look, she’s telling me to bring up the dog.”

Harry.
Harry.
I grabbed another tissue from the Kleenex box and pressed it to the corner of one eye. Frank looked
at me blankly and took another breath. This was the last thing he said: “You are very loved.” He raised a glass of water to his skinny lips, hidden beneath acres of scruffy beard. “You need to work harder at loving yourself.”

Amazing
, what you can grow used to.

“You can’t eat that in here, you know that, right?”

February, and I’d finally acclimated to all the shittiness at school. At long last I’d worked out the perfect system for keeping myself invisible: open blocks on the back patio, lunches in the library stacks, reading cheesy mystery novels.

“Eat what?” I asked, my mouth full, shoving my sandwich behind my back, covering my face with the paperback I’d been reading.

“Come on, Holly. No food allowed. You know that.” Ms. McGovern was standing over me, clicking a pencil against her top two teeth. “Take that out to the cafeteria.”

“No, look, I’m done,” I said, swallowing, then rewrapping my sandwich and shoving it back in my bag. “No more
eating, I swear. Just reading.” I flashed a smile and waved my book around overhead. McGovern tugged on the waistband of her rayon slacks, then backed away, leaving me to my books and solitude. I made sure she’d returned to her station at the circulation desk before getting up and moving farther back, to another spot by the computer lab that seemed much more secluded.

I dumped my things in a pile by the printer and relaxed back against the leg of one of the vacant desks. I opened my book back up. I took my sandwich back out of my bag.

Kneeling in the hallway, fishing through my bag for a tube of lipstick or a pen or maybe my new book, I spotted Saskia. She was just a few yards off, leaning against her locker, talking to Sarah Wehle, who was doing some sort of animated song and dance, trying to elicit a happy reaction from Saskia, who just looked so sad, standing there, chewing her sandy blond hair. We hadn’t spoken since December. I felt a sick pang in my gut, then sprang to my feet, rushing forward. I was going to make a move. I was going to
say something
.
I can undo this,
I thought.
I can make everything better
.

But as I got more near, Sarah’s eyes were suddenly on me, narrowing. Soon after, Saskia and I were locked in a stare-off. I froze, midstep, watching them watch me. My impulse to say something, to make some big overture or gesture, instantly faded. I turned a quick pivot, then walked swiftly
in the opposite direction.
What could I possibly say now, anyways?
Everything had already been said.

Nils was ten yards away, approaching fast.

“You look good,” I said. These, the first words we’d exchanged since he’d gotten back from his trip, in early January.

“Thanks,” he whispered, smiling tightly, passing me quickly in the hallway on his walk to the auditorium.

He was taking a class with Ballanoff this quarter. I’d done some investigative work and discovered this. I loved the idea of Nils doing those weirdo acting warm-ups alongside Ballanoff. Somehow, it kept me feeling connected to him, still.

And he did look good. His hair looked longer, like he hadn’t bothered with a cut in the last month or two.
Maybe the new girlfriend likes it long,
I thought. New girlfriend.
Barf.
Eleanor Bishop.
Hurl.

They’d been inseparable since January. Typical Nils. Barely a breath between women. But she was smart, Eleanor, nothing like Nora. She wore understated clothes and cared about important things like stray dogs and global warming. I hated her. I hated her small, boyish body and her square black glasses. I hated watching Nils hold her hand in the hall. Sometime, somewhere, I’d heard someone say she was
saving herself
—for what, I’m not sure. But she had principles, was
the point. She had virtue. Two things I’d had once but had lost along the way.

“Okay, well … see you!” I cried insanely, calling after him. He turned awkwardly and nodded a quick “Sure thing” before pushing past the big double doors to the auditorium.

Nora asked me for rides home, still. Once she’d heard that Nils’s and my friendship had completely dissolved, she felt bad for me, I think.

“Have you guys talked at all?” she asked.

We were in my car after school driving home. Nora was wearing her favorite oversize sweatshirt and a pair of lowwaisted pale jeans.

“Not really. No.” She looked so sympathetic. I loathed thinking Nora and I might be feeling something similar. Two peas, same pod, that sort of thing. “What about you?” I asked.

“Same thing.” But it wasn’t the same. Nils’s and Nora’s short-lived romance could never compare to the six years I’d spent with him. Not ever.

I smiled and turned up her driveway. “Here you go. Door to door.” I pulled the car to a stop.

“You wanna come in?” she asked, unbuckling her seat belt and turning to face me.

I appreciated the invite. I did. She was the one person at
school who was still making an effort, and that meant loads to me. Still … “Not today. I have to take Harry out for a run. Thanks, though.”

“Okay,” she said, stepping out onto the gravel. “It gets easier, you know.” She was bending down now, watching me through the open window on the passenger side door.

“Time heals, right?”

She gave a firm nod. “Exactly. All wounds.”

One Saturday morning
in early March, I wandered out of my room half asleep and stopped when I heard something coming from inside Jeff and Mom’s bedroom. I cracked the door and poked my head inside. Jeff had two huge cardboard boxes on the bed and was weeding through Mom’s closet.

“What’re you doing?”

“Hols, honey, hi. Come in here, will you? Do you want any of this stuff?”

“What is this?”

“Anything you want, take. The rest of it I think we should just drop off at Goodwill.”

I walked forward and sat down on the bed, next to a pile of Mom’s dresses. I rubbed some silky material between my fingertips. “You’re really getting rid of her stuff?”

Jeff sat back, pushing a chunk of hair off his forehead. “She’s not coming back, Hols, you know? What am I going to do with nine hundred dresses and a billion different face creams? Especially with you leaving? I can’t hold on to this stuff forever.”

“No, I know.” I looked down at the silky cream-colored dress I was running back and forth between my fingers. “I want this one, though, okay?”

Jeff nodded. “Of course. Whatever you want.”

“Her perfume, too. And just, don’t get rid of any of her really old stuff until I get a chance to go through it, okay?”

“Okay.” Jeff squeezed my shoulder. Then he turned back toward Mom’s closet and pulled out this black puffy number made from velvet and crinoline. The black-tie bar mitzvah dress. Big hit at weddings, too.

“I hated that thing.” I sniffed, grabbing the dress by its stiff skirt, walking it over to the full-length mirror and holding it up to my body. “Can I keep it?”

Jeff stood up. “You do this: Whatever you don’t want, we’ll get rid of.” He kissed the top of my head and walked out into the hallway. “I’ll make the eggs,” he said.

So here’s what I ended up with: eleven dresses, some of her nicer shoes, a pair of Pumas she’d never worn (to wear on my hikes, with Harry), her perfumes and a few toiletries
that smelled like her—soaps, hand lotions, etc. I thought briefly about Mom’s cancer again, i.e.,
could I catch it?
Then I pushed back that thought and slipped a light blue baggy sweatshirt of hers over my head.

I kept all her jewelry, too. The rest I took to Goodwill.

As I was unloading my boxes out onto the curb, Saskia’s car pulled into the open parking spot right next to me. A tall boy with a messy blond mop of hair pushed his way out from her passenger side door. Saskia followed. “Oh. Hi,” she said, startled.

“Surprise,” I deadpanned, turning back to my boxes.

“Weeding out?”

I whipped around. This was the first time she’d spoken to me in months. “Yeah. Mom’s stuff. Jeff finally had me clean out her closets this morning.”

Saskia pursed her lips. “We’re picking up Thai, for dinner.” She gestured to the boy behind her. “This is Sean, by the way.”

Her brother.
Oh.

“Hi,” he said, looking at the ground.

“Holly,” I whispered. And that’s when he looked up. When he heard me say my name.

“Okay, well, we should get going,” Saskia slammed her car door shut and the two of them backed their way toward the restaurant next door. I wanted to tell her I missed her. That I was sorry for what I’d done. That knowing her,
even briefly, had changed me for the better. Instead, I said, “Yeah, of course. See you around.” I picked a box up off the hot cement, carried it ten feet, and dumped it into the donation bin.
Bye-bye, Mom
.

“What if I went
up north, to Santa Cruz? What would you think if I did that?”

Monday night. TV night. Jeff and I were side by side on the couch. It was early April. I’d just gotten three acceptance letters. One rejection.

“I think it’d be great. Is that what you’re thinking?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

He twisted his body sideways so we were facing each other. “Why maybe? You want to stay down here? Go to UCLA?”

“I want to leave. And I don’t want to leave.”

He put a hand on my head.

“What about you and me?” I asked. “I mean, if I leave, what happens to you and me?”

Jeff muted the television. “Nothing happens to you and me. You’re my kid. You’ll be five hours north, Hols, no big deal.” He cocked his head, holding my gaze. “You worried about me?”

I chewed the inside of my lip and ran the ball of my foot over Harry’s head. He was lying on the rug beneath the coffee table.

“Honey, this is your
life
. I’ll be fine. I’m a grown man. I want you to do what feels right for you.”

I pressed my lips together and felt my eyes start to water. “Okay.” I nodded.