The Art of Losing Yourself (19 page)

C
ARMEN

When a woman has had as many miscarriages as I have, with no children to help her forget, there are too many depressing anniversaries in a year. Not just the day of the actual loss, but due dates too. I never set out to remember them. In fact, I set out to actively forget them. A few I was able to let pass without notice, but not this one. This one stuck out more than all the rest, an inevitable turning point in our journey.

I picked up my barely touched plate and Ben’s mostly empty one, both messy with remnants of fish taco, and brought them into the kitchen. Thanks to Gracie’s new job at the theater, it was just Ben and me. Normally, Gracie’s presence added more tension to dinner. Tonight, her absence screamed. Of all the evenings she had to be gone, why this one—on the anniversary of my third miscarriage? It might seem odd that my third was the one I remembered most vividly. You would think it would be my first. But not so. With the first and the second, I still had hope. My trust in God was shaken but not shattered. Besides, the percentage of women who had three consecutive miscarriages, my doctor had said, was very small. So when I became a part of that very small percentage, something more than my baby died. By the time I had my fourth, and then my fifth and sixth, the shock and the pain had turned dull.

I used a fork to scrape the remnants of food off the plates and fed them to our garbage disposal. I wanted nothing more than to hurry up with the cleaning so I could climb between the covers of my bed and leave this day behind. I wasn’t even sure Ben remembered. He hadn’t brought it up. I flipped off the disposal, plugged the drain, and filled the basin of the sink with hot, sudsy water. Leaning my hips against the counter, I immersed my hands until my palms lay flat against the steel bottom.

I’m drowning
.

Just like in my dream. I was drowning, and nobody even noticed. I kept waiting for God to throw me a life ring. So far He seemed content to watch me sink.

Ben walked into the kitchen behind me. I expected him to grab a drink from the fridge. Relax in the living room while watching ESPN or disappear into the garage to listen to music and throw some darts. Instead, he stayed, tapping his thumb mindlessly against the counter, staring at some spot on the ground with a furrow in his brow. When his eyes lifted and met mine, I turned back to the sink.

“How’re things going at the motel?” he asked.

“Fine.” It was more than fine, actually. Even with Gracie’s sardonic commentary, the motel was the only place I felt like me anymore. I loved the sense of accomplishment and simplicity the manual labor brought. There, if I scrubbed a wall hard enough, it would start to look new. Nothing complicated or uncertain about it. I was mourning the loss of my time there come Monday, but what choice did I have? Quit work? I had a good job. And renovating the motel didn’t pay the bills. I rinsed off plate one and set it on the rack.

“Brandon tells me you’ve been going to CrossFit with Natalie.”

“A few times.” During my forced leave of absence, my presence at Vitality Gym had been scattered at best. I had yet to drink the CrossFit Kool-Aid. My poor muscles refused to embrace something that caused so much pain. But Natalie was convinced I needed the endorphins, so she pestered me to come on a daily basis. Maybe she noticed I was sinking. Maybe CrossFit was her life ring.

“Are you liking it?” he asked.

“I no longer want to murder her while I’m doing it.”

“Well, you look good.” He smiled a faint smile, and in the upturned corners of his mouth, I saw a spark of the man I fell in love with. The man who used to make my heart do funny things. The man whose touch once set my skin on fire. “You always look good.”

His compliment hung in the air between us, an electric thing I didn’t want to touch. I set plate two beside plate one and began working on the silverware. He remained for a couple seconds longer, as if waiting for me to go next. Ask him about his day, perhaps. But I had no energy for pottery or football or teenagers. Sadly, I realized, I didn’t have any energy for him. He let out a long sigh and exited the kitchen, leaving me alone with this chronic ache and a sad sliver of relief.

Then he returned with our glasses in hand. He brought them to the sink
and dried the plates with a towel. “Did Gracie tell you she might join the debate team?”

I stopped mid fork scrub. “The debate team?”

He placed the plates into the cupboard. “I take that as a no?”

“She’s going to join the debate team?” And she told Ben about it, but not me?

“The debate coach—Reyas?—she thinks Gracie’s a natural. I guess she checked things out yesterday after school.”

“So this Reyas talked to you about Gracie?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t think I’d want to know?”

“You’re upset because I didn’t tell you about a passing comment some teacher made in the teacher’s lounge?”

I set the silverware onto the rack. “I’m upset because I have no idea how Gracie’s doing.”

Ben chuckled, which meant he didn’t hear the hurt in my voice. It had been three and a half weeks since Gracie arrived, and my sister was every bit as caustic toward me as she’d been when I found her living as a homeless person. In fact, her attitude toward me today while we worked on the motel had been the worst, and I had no idea what I did to deserve it.

“You spend all that time together at The Chest.”

“Gracie isn’t exactly a chatterbox.” The harder I tried to engage in a conversation, the more terse her responses became. True phenomenon. If I made a point to ignore her while we worked, she ended up talking more. It was ridiculous, this game I was forced to play.

“She’s just being a teenager. You can’t take it personally.” Ben finished drying the silverware, put it in the drawer, then came behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Trust me, I work with them all day.”

My posture stiffened.

He must not have noticed, because he pressed his lips against the sensitive spot behind my ear.

And all of a sudden, it made sense. Ben’s small talk. His compliments. Helping with after-dinner cleanup. This wasn’t about me or the date on the calendar; this was about him and his needs. His lips moved to my opposite ear.

I pulled away. “Ben.”

“What?” he whispered.

“Gracie’s going to be home soon.”

“Gracie’s working at the theater.” He turned me around and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I doubt she’ll be home soon.”

I leaned away. “Ben, seriously.”

“Carmen, it’s been a while.”

I wanted to scream. At the top of my lungs, scream. I wanted to pick up a dish and chuck it against the wall. Wake him up and make him see me. Couldn’t he understand that this was the last thing I felt like doing? On today of all days, did he really think sex was anywhere on my radar? “I have a headache.”

My words might as well have been a heavy blanket over a fire. All traces of desire snuffed out from his eyes, replaced instead by a hardness I hated. He turned around. Opened the cupboard above the stove. Pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen and set it on the counter with a snap. Then he headed out into the garage, leaving me to stew in my guilt and resentment.

G
RACIE

A zit-faced girl with a mouth full of braces smiled at me as I handed her change and a large tub of popcorn. She hurried into theater two where a cheesy romantic comedy played and left behind an empty lobby. Gus, a mop-haired kid two years older than I and also my trainer for the night, bobbed his head up and down like a human-sized bobblehead, making the ridiculous white sailor hat we were forced to wear as part of our work uniform go crooked on his head. “Great job. Great job. Do you have any questions so far?”

“Scoop popcorn into tub. Hand to customer. I think I got it.”

“Got it. Good. Good.”

I read a book once where the character had this condition called echolalia. It was a legit thing where he compulsively echoed the last word or two of whatever another person said. I was beginning to think Gus had a case of echolalia.

“Whenever there’s a lull, I make sure to sweep up the floor, wipe off the counters, and restock the candy.”

I grabbed a broom and swept the fallen popcorn into a pile, all under the watchful eye of bobbleheaded Gus. I gathered the pile of popcorn and debris into the dustpan, dumped it into the garbage, and wiped off the counter. As I was finishing restocking the candy in the display case, the same zit-faced girl from earlier came back to the counter, sans her popcorn tub. “Excuse me, but there are some girls in the front of the theater who keep throwing Skittles at the screen.”

Gus bobbed his head, then turned to me. “I need to deal with this. Do you think you can manage manning the counter alone for a little while?”

“I think I can manage.”

He gave me the thumbs up, marched ahead of the girl past the first set of double doors, then disappeared into the second set of double doors to go deal with the Skittle tossers. Theaters one and two played whatever was most popular at the box office. Right now, it was the cheesy rom-com and some highaction thriller that was all gunshots and screaming whenever somebody pushed
open the door. According to Gus, those were the theaters that brought in the majority of customers.

The third and smallest theater—the reason I could tolerate the ridiculous hat—played reruns of the classics. Alfred Hitchcock films, black-and-white film noir, anything with Cary Grant, and a smattering of my favorite—timeless eighties movies. In exchange for one five-dollar bill, a person could get a small tub of popcorn, a small drink, and a seat in theater three. I thought that was a mighty fine deal.

I was stuffing a few more Sno-Caps inside the candy display case when one of the four front doors opened and my pulse hiccuped. Because it was Elias who walked inside. Two people shadowed him—a short, skinny boy with a sizable Afro and a gait like a penguin, thanks to the pants that kept sliding down his butt. And a girl. I didn’t recognize either.

Elias came to the counter with a smile on his face. “Cute hat.”

I snatched it off my head. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to see a movie. What else?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He knew I was working tonight. I told him yesterday on the dock, when he told me I had beautiful eyes. He’d said nothing then about plans to see a movie.

“Gracie, meet Chanelle. Chanelle, meet my friend Gracie.”

Chanelle, with no qualifier, had skin the color of melted chocolate and not a single blemish to be found, big light-brown eyes, and short, kinky curls held back from her face by a hot-pink headband. She looked like she should be on the cover of
Teen
magazine. And she was with Elias. She stuck her hands in the front pockets of a zip-up hoodie which was the same color as her headband. The word
Cutie
was written across the front in sparkly rhinestone letters. “Nice to finally meet you, Gracie.”

Finally?

Elias hooked his muscular arm around the boy’s scrawny neck. “And this is Chanelle’s little brother, Sam.”

Sam, who looked to be somewhere in the junior high range, squirmed out of Elias’s headlock and patted his Afro. “Name’s Samson. And I ain’t little.”

“You are when you stand next to Elias,” Chanelle said.

My stomach twisted at the sound of that name on her lips. She called him Elias. I had no idea why it bothered me. I looked between them, trying to figure
out what they were. I mean, if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, why the kid brother? But if they were just friends, then why didn’t Elias put a qualifier in front of her name, like he had with mine?

“Chanelle and Samson live across the bay in Pensacola. Her family’s been going to The Cross longer than I have.”

So they went to church together.

Chanelle tipped her chin at me. “You should come to youth group sometime on a Wednesday night.”

“Youth group isn’t really my thing.”

“Why not?”

My mind wandered to Chris Nanning and his buddies going to Fellowship of Christian Athletes during the week, then partying hard on the weekends. It was all a little too hypocritical for my taste. “I don’t really like the people who go.”

Chanelle’s eyes widened a little.

Elias set his elbows on the counter and smiled. His dimples were extra deep tonight. “I told you she was honest.”

My stomach twisted.
He told her?
So what, the two were talking about me?

“I need to take a leak.” Samson held up his pants and waddled off to the rest room.

“Me too,” Chanelle said. “But I prefer to call it ‘using the rest room.’ I’ll take a popcorn and a lemonade.” I didn’t miss the way Chanelle’s hand lingered on Elias’s arm before she walked away.

Elias pulled three tickets from his wallet and slid them across the counter. They were for the third theater, which meant he had good taste. “Three popcorns, one lemonade, and two Dr Peppers.”

I grabbed three of the small tubs and three small cups from their respective stacks next to the popcorn machine and attempted indifference. Elias showing up at the theater with a beautiful girl should not bother me. “Is this your first time seeing
Little Shop of Horrors
?”

“Yep.”

“Get ready for a classic.”

“It’s good?”

“A giant singing plant that eats people?” I filled the tubs with popcorn. “What’s not to like?”

He chuckled. “So how’s the first day on the job?”

“Besides Gus, it’s not too bad.” I set the three popcorns on the counter, then went to work filling each cup with ice.

“Who’s Gus?”

“My trainer for the evening. He’s currently dealing with a Skittles emergency in theater two.”

“Sounds serious.”

“We don’t take Skittles emergencies lightly here.” I pushed the first cup beneath a fountain of lemonade.

“When do you get off?”

“After your movie’s over. It’s the last show for the night.”

“Are you going to Parker’s party afterward?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I waited to see if he was going to argue with me some more. Give me another warning. I fitted a lid over the lemonade and set the second cup beneath the Dr Pepper nozzle.

“I’m gonna ask you a question, even though I’m pretty sure I already know your answer.”

This had my attention. “Okay.”

“What’s your opinion on high school dances?”

I looked at him over my shoulder. “You mean like homecoming?”

“Yes, like homecoming.”

I turned my attention back to the soda fountain, a sickening feeling expanding in my gut. Was Elias really asking me to a dance when his date for the night was inside the ladies’ room? Maybe he was more like Chris Nanning than I thought. I put lids over the Dr Pepper drinks and brought them to the counter. “Are you asking me to go?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me.” More dimples. “And Chanelle and a bunch of other kids too. A group of us from youth group all go together.”

“Oh.” Out of the corner of my eye, Samson pounded away on an old-school Pac-Man arcade game sitting outside theater one. His big sister exited the rest room and headed toward us. Still no sign of Gus. “Chanelle doesn’t go to Bay Breeze.”

“No, but neither do a lot of the kids at youth group. We’ve been going to each other’s dances since freshman year. It’s a fun time.”

An image of me in one of those gaudy prom dresses, standing off in a corner while Elias and Chanelle slow danced to some equally gaudy boy band music—his large hands on her small waist, gazing into one another’s eyes—made me nauseous. Not exactly my idea of a fun time.

“Is she going to come?” Chanelle asked.

I blinked away the image. Eli’s maybe-date had returned, and apparently she already knew he was going to invite me.

“I’m not really a dance person,” I said.

He smiled. “Just what kind of person are you, Gracie Fisher?”

Gus exited theater two looking harassed.

I shoved the hat back on my head.

Eli gave the counter a tap, like he didn’t really care about the answer, then palmed two of the popcorns in one hand, two of the drinks in the other, and walked with Chanelle toward theater three, stopping at the Pac-Man game to hand Samson his movie treats. With one of his arms now free, he set his hand on the small of Chanelle’s back and ushered her inside to see
Little Shop of Horrors
, leaving me with bobbleheaded Gus and a heart full of disappointment.

C
ARMEN

My eyes fluttered open. I blinked into the dark, disoriented, trying to figure out why I was awake. The red numbers on my bedside clock read 10:10. I’d only been sleeping half an hour, yet it felt like an entire night. I pushed myself up to sitting. Outside our bedroom window, light shone from the garage. Downstairs, there was rustling, then the creaking of steps. Gracie said her shift ended at ten. She must be home.

The thin strip of space between the carpet and the bottom of my bedroom door turned yellow. I leaned against the headboard, listening as a door closed, the toilet flushed, water ran through pipes, resolve rising up inside me. According to Natalie, the teenage years were proving to be way more challenging than the middle-of-the-night-feedings, spitup-everywhere years. Yet here I was, with
a teenager on my hands. I had no idea why Gracie had been extra prickly at The Treasure Chest today. I just knew we were supposed to be progressing in our relationship, not regressing. But that was what today had felt like. One giant step back. Well, no more. I was determined to prove to myself and whomever else that I could do this.