Future Perfect (18 page)

I
haven't seen Laura in a week—since our trip to San Francisco. She hasn't been in school at all, as far as I know. I've texted her.
WHAT'S UP WITH OMAR?
She never texts back. I've backspaced so many texts to her after just one letter because I have no idea what the next letter is.

Jolene is still staying with us. And she keeps telling me to call Laura and I nod but never do and when Laura shows up at the front door I have to assume that Jolene went ahead and did it for me.

“Interview for Harvard,” Laura said, standing on the top step now. “Full speed ahead.”

“Oh yeah I'm on the fast track now!” I say brightly, and she frowns. I'm making jokes. She doesn't say anything about it though. We sit in my bedroom the way we always do, a pile of dogs and all of us talking about the easiest subject—when I'm leaving for the interview and how long I'm staying and where I'll be sleeping.
“
And with who,
ha ha,” I say, nudging Jolene in the side.

“I'm sorry about Hector,” Laura says.

I shrug. I can't explain the hole he has left, how desperately I'm trying to backfill it. I touch the DNA charm dangling at my chest.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Laura says. She's sitting on the floor with Annabelle Lee in her lap, flapping her tiny ears up and down in rhythm. Annabelle Lee is content to be mauled.

“No,” I say. “I'll be okay.”

“You could stay with my aunt maybe,” Laura offers. “On my mom's side, so that could be awkward, but still.”

“Maybe,” I say. I have been looking forward to the idea of a hotel room and a giant bed and a tub with water pressure and where the water isn't kind of orange.

Laura stands up with Annabelle Lee under her arm. Annabelle Lee hangs there in a very dignified way. “What are you going to wear?” Laura says. She goes to my closet and starts pulling out blouses, T-shirts, dresses, with her other hand, throwing them on the bed.

“I have a suit,” I say, but Laura doesn't stop going through my clothes.

She says, “Where's your suitcase?” and I dig it up and she says, “This is so small.” She's tossing a pile of stuff in it. I stop myself from trying to catch the things that flap through the air, put my closet back together.

“There,” she says, satisfied. “I wonder if it closes.” She sets Annabelle Lee down and swings the lid closed. It doesn't close. She yanks on the zipper but it catches in one of the sweaters she packed. Toby pads over to sniff at the zipper and I shoo him away. I hadn't even realized I had sweaters but I suppose Boston might be a cold place in November. “Oh for fuck's sake,” Laura says, and punches the side of the suitcase.

I snort. “I think you overpacked.”

She throws herself across the suitcase and makes irritated grunting noises while she tugs hard on the zipper again. She looks very artistic in the motes of dust that sweep through the sunbeam illuminating her skin to dark copper and her hair shining black-gold.

“A little help here,” she says.

“You have to take some things out.”

“No,” she says. “You need options.”

“It's just a carry-on,” I say, but she is still tugging. “I have enough options,” I say. “I have plenty of options now.” I try not to think of the Lane Bryant dressing room and the dressing-room mirror and the feeling of not being able to breathe.

“Now you do,” she says. “You're welcome. Jolene, please come sit on this suitcase. No, stand on it. Stand on it and jump.”

Jolene sits up on the bed but I jump up first. “Don't break my suitcase!” I say. It's my mother's ancient plaid hard-sided one. The satiny green-gold lining inside is fraying and a little loose and it
smells like mothballs and thrift-store clothing and everything I wear will smell like that too, but it doesn't seem like there's any other appropriate bag to bring for my interview trip. And here is my stomach again, a clenched fist, a helpful reminder from deep inside my body that I am not just a brain in a jar.

I sit down hard. “I don't want to go,” I say.

“We know,” Jolene says, swinging her legs against the side of the mattress. She has not been sleeping again, and it is like I'm watching her slowly sink every day. I had told her, “I got the Harvard interview,” when I came home with the big Lane Bryant bag and she had said, “Congratulations,” and then drifted back upstairs with her mug of tea.

“It's important to be honest,” I say.

“We know,” Jolene says, and her heel bangs against the bedframe. “Ow,” she says.

Laura is still grunting at the suitcase and I stand up again.

“I have an idea,” I say. I poke Laura in the side with my toe. “Move it, move it.” I push with the ball of my foot until she rolls off and lies sprawled on the rug, panting.

“You're not smarter than me,” she says.

I drag the suitcase to the middle of the floor and dump it on its side. I pick up the curated list from my desk. “One pair of black slacks,” I say, and Laura sighs dramatically, flops onto her back spread-eagle.

“Hooray for gratitude,” she says.

“Did you put underwear on your list?” Jolene says. “I think Laura forgot to pack underwear.” She's standing up and reaching for the dresser but I swing around.

“No, I got it, I'm good,” I say. The idea of someone looking at my drawer full of tucked and rolled underwear in a rainbow of colors makes me nervous, somehow.

“Do you have your laptop?” Laura asks.

“Of course I have my laptop.”

“I meant on your packing list. Something to read?”

“I have my laptop,” I say. “Things to read are on it.”

“Can you even use a laptop on a plane?” Jolene says to Laura.

“I have my calculus book,” I say.

Laura rolls her eyes.

“Did you submit your application essay yet?” Jolene says.

I stop in the middle of tucking a pile of underwear into a dark recess of the carry-on. “No,” I say. Because I have this terrible feeling that if I sit down and write, I'll do something stupid like pour out my heart. Birthday coupons and my body and this growing, aching fear that I'm not the person I think I am.

“Oh, hell. Give me her laptop,” Laura says. “I'll do it.”

“I just—haven't finished it yet,” I say with my head inside the suitcase.

There's a long silence.

I pull my head out. “I haven't started the essay yet,” I say.

“Don't you need to have the application finished—don't they
need to have you as a candidate, on the rolls, ready to go, to actually conduct the interview?” Laura asks.

I interrupt her. “Back off. Like you give a shit if I get into Harvard—”

“I
don't
give a shit about where you go,” she says. “End up in community college if you want. Fuck up your fancy life plan.”

And that is about all I can take.

“And how's
your
life plan?” I say. “Shouldn't you be up in San Francisco fucking Omar in his crack house?”

“Oh, Omar!” she says. “Yes, Omar. My
ex
-boyfriend who was really excited you burned down his fucking art show.”

“I didn't burn it down,” I say, and then I kick my suitcase. “It wasn't even an art show! It was a bunch of underemployed date rapists pretending to know shit-all about photography, and Omar being useless.”

“Luckily for you,
you
didn't have to date him.”

“Lucky for you he dumped you. Hey maybe you can actually do something with your life now.”

Laura laughs. “I love how you spend your whole existence telling everyone else what to do, when you have no idea what the hell
you're
doing.”

“What are you even talking about?” I snap.

“You are so lost right now you're off the map. You totally pushed Hector away because you couldn't deal with the fact that he sees through you and still gave a shit anyway, and you've finally
bought into your grandma's insane ideas, and for someone who thinks she's completely together and knows exactly who she is and what she wants? You are a big fucking mess.” She's breathing heavily and her fists are clenched at her sides now.

There is a scream in me, a roar, a gaping hollow full of storming sound in my gut and I am shaking.

“Get out,” I say. “Just get out.” But I'm the one who walks out of the room, gets in the car, and lurches it out of the driveway, hitting the gas and letting the sound of the engine and the wind fill up my entire head, drown out that noise that is whirling inside me, that is pacing the long path between my stomach and my throat, that is trying to crawl out. I find myself skidding into my usual spot next to Cap'n Bill's and sit there for a minute, wondering how the hell I got there and why. When I slam the door behind me, the whole car shakes.

“Oh my gosh hiiyee!” fluffy pink Jessica says, walking hand in hand with her new idiot boyfriend from the next town over. I grimace at her. She's finally given up on Brandon at least. I raise my hand at the three freshman yearbook kids who swerve to grab my arm and I zoom past them, walking fast to the end of the pier, the fake lighthouse, the hazy horizon, and the water looking like molten silver. There is no one drowning out there, no head or hand or movement at all, just wisps of clouds pulled thin and translucent across the backdrop of sky that makes you feel like you're falling forever. I pretend that everything behind me has
toppled into the sea, and I'm just here balancing on the horizon as best as I can. I kick off my flip-flops hard, and one of them splashes into the water, floats briefly, dips, and then starts washing down the side of the pier and away and I catch a sob in my throat. It's too much. A stupid little thing is finally too much.

“No,” I say, scrambling after it. It snags on a post, in a haze of seaweed and muck, and I fish it out. The water is so cold. I can't imagine how my grandmother could have plunged into it, swam so far and for so long, there and back again. My hand feels stiff. I throw the flip-flop back onto the dock and just lie there with my fingers wrapped hard around the slat of splintery, rotten wood, my forehead pressed against a gap between the boards. It smells like seaweed and fish and salt. Another spasm in my chest.

I push myself up and stumble to my feet and spin around because I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm here or what this is.

And then—Brandon is coming down the back stairs of the restaurant with his hands in his pockets. I stumble back like I have been pushed on the shoulder. I don't look around for Morgan, who is probably sitting on the hood of his car in her hockey shorts and posting windblown Snapchats. When he hesitates at the bottom of the stairs, lifts his hand to me in a wave, I shudder. A picture of myself as an enormous creeping shadow silhouetted against the bright sky flashes behind my eyes. He recognizes me from this distance because of the space I
take up. The enormous cutout against the clouds.

He is standing there and he's waiting for me. I am flailing around snatching up my flip-flops and walking toward him because hunching at the end of the dock and pretending I am just a seagull isn't going to be any less awkward.

“Your hair is a mess!” he says, grinning. “It's a good look for you.”

He reaches out to pull a curl away from my cheek but I jerk back, patting my tangles self-consciously. “Great,” I say.

He winks and I say, “Oh god, Brandon,
don't wink.
It's skeevy.”

“Laura tells me that all the time.”

“She's usually right,” I say automatically. “Or, sometimes. She's been right before.” A pause. “I have to go,” I say. “I'm going.” I start shuffling over to my car, and he turns to walk with me.

“Have you seen her?” he asks. “I thought she was working today.”

“Laura? No,” I say. “I mean, not working. She was at my house helping me pack. I'm going to Harvard,” I say stupidly.

He stops and pokes me in the arm. “Wait, really? That's great! That's so great!” he says. “Come here!” He slides his arms around my waist and pulls me up against him in a tight hug. He's stroking my back and saying, “Congratulations! Why didn't Laura tell me? The last she told me was that you were still working on—”

“No,” I interrupt, pushing back from him, taking a couple of stumbling steps away. “Just the interview.”

He reaches out to catch me but I bat his hand away. “Oh. Okay,” he says. “Okay. That's still pretty great.”

“I don't want to go,” I say. I cross my arms. “I don't think I can go, even if I get in.”

He frowns.

“Harvard. No one can get in,” I explain. “Did you know that they only admitted one thousand, six hundred and sixty-two students last year?”

“Out of how many?”

“Over thirty-five thousand!” I shout. I have flung my hands up dramatically but I cannot stop myself. “Does that seem reasonable to you? Does any of this seem reasonable to you?” It did seem reasonable, when I thought my mother was once one of those just-over-one-thousand students.

But not now. Not anymore.

Seagulls squawk and flap away and my voice echoes off the pier and neighbors are all looking at me. I stop and lean against the railing of the dock. I can't look at him. I drag my fingers through my tangled hair and they catch on the knots, hurt when they pull.

“Where else did you apply?” His voice is soft.

“Nowhere,” I say. “I didn't apply anywhere else.”

“Oh,” he says. “It's not too late.”

“I don't want to go anywhere else,” I say.

“Well, you could. Your grades are good enough.” He sounds so reasonable.

“I don't want to go anywhere else,” I say again. “I won't. I can't.”

I am almost spilling over with tears and still not looking at him, but I can feel his concern radiating over me. But maybe I shouldn't assign compassion to people whose minds I can't read. “I have to go,” I say again, and the truth of that is all around me, in the faces of all the people I know passing us and waving, me feeling so outsized in a town so small. The place my mother had to run away from. The feeling that nothing but the best can make up for all the rest of me. The flaws that everyone knows so well, no matter what I do. They have opinions about how I look, no matter what I accomplish.