Grace
“Please somebody go first?” Grace whined.
She looked at every grown-up in the room, one at a time. Only Mrs. Hinman looked back. Maybe because Mrs. Hinman had already taken her turn, at the last meeting, and so wasn’t feeling under the gun. Grown-ups always acted different when you put the tiniest little bit of pressure on them.
Everybody was gathered at Rayleen’s. Everybody.
Even Billy was there. Dressed, yet. Standing with his back against the door, like his own apartment would save his life if he could just stay close to it. She caught him biting a thumbnail, but she figured if she yelled at him like she usually did, he might run home again, so she let it go by.
Rayleen was sitting cross-legged on the rug, her back up against the couch, where Jesse could only see her from behind. Grace wondered if Rayleen had figured that out on purpose.
Jesse sat looking around at all the faces like he was memorizing everything for later, and it was impossible for Grace to tell what he was thinking, though she watched him and wondered about it a lot.
Felipe bounced one knee up and down and stared at the rug as if rugs hypnotized him.
“Pleeeeease?”
Then Rayleen opened her mouth to talk, which Grace took to be a good sign. But it didn’t take long to realize her mistake.
“I don’t know about anybody else,” Rayleen said, a sharpness in her voice that Grace had only heard Rayleen use when addressing Grace’s mom, “but I’m feeling pressured by this. I am not ready for this,” she added, glancing halfway over her shoulder in the general direction of Jesse.
Grace’s face burned, and a line of ache radiated down into her belly. Rayleen had never spoken to her in an angry tone before, and to have it happen now, in front of all these people…including somebody new…well, it was nothing short of humiliating. Tears welled up behind her eyes, but she fought hard to hide them.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Felipe looked up suddenly. Right into Grace’s eyes.
“I guess I could go,” he said.
She wanted to hug and kiss him, but it all happened too fast.
“I wasn’t alone,” Felipe said, his accent thicker than usual, which Grace had noticed before, usually when he was extra-tired or feeling emotional. “I mean, until just…well…not long. Pretty much just a little while ago. A few weeks. I had a girlfriend. We were gonna get married. I gave her a ring and everything, and we had a little son. Twenty months. And then one day I get home from work, and there’s this bag by my door. It has my toothbrush in it, and the spare shirts and underwear I kept at her house. And at the very bottom is the little box with the ring in it. The engagement ring I gave her. So I guess that’s that.”
Felipe allowed a silence to fall, and…wow. It was a very silent silence.
“Did she say why?” Grace asked, reverently.
“I can’t even get through to talk to her. I left a million messages. Finally I called her sister. And so her sister says there’s another guy, and there’s been another guy for mucho tiempo. A lot of time.”
More silence.
Rayleen seemed to have forgotten her irritation. She opened her mouth to speak, and the words came out soft and helpful, the way Grace wished Rayleen had spoken to her.
“Did you have any idea?”
“Yes and no,” Felipe said. “I did and I didn’t. I was so surprised. But now I look back and see some things. You know how it is. At least, I think you know. You see but you don’t see. You see a thing. And you think it’s a certain way. But you tell yourself, ‘No, that’s crazy, you’re wrong.’ And then you find out you’re right. And part of you says, ‘Hell, I didn’t know,’ and another part of you says, ‘Oh yeah you did.’”
“What about su hijo?” Grace asked, her voice hushed with awe.
“What about what?” Billy asked, and then went back to shredding his thumbnail.
“His little boy,” Grace said. “Don’t bite your nails.”
“Well, I asked that,” Felipe said. “I asked her sister. I said, ‘What about Diego? How am I supposed to see Diego?’ I said, ‘After all, he’s my son. My flesh and blood.’ Know what she said?”
Felipe’s voice broke on the last sentence, and Grace found herself unsure if she wanted to know or not. She shook her head without thinking.
“She said, ‘Maybe he’s your son, and maybe he isn’t.’”
Grace got up from her chair and ran across the room, throwing her arms around Felipe’s neck.
“Lo siento, Felipe,” she said, in barely over a whisper. “Lo siento para su hijo.”
“Gracias,” Felipe breathed quietly.
“I have to go,” Billy said suddenly, from his perch by the door.
His panic must have hit him like a dam breaking, because Grace could hear how his words turned into the truth at nearly the exact same moment they rushed out of him.
She let go of Felipe and stepped back. Billy already had the door open.
“Oh, no. Billy. Can’t you please try just a little longer? It’s just getting to be a real meeting!”
“Sorry, baby girl. I can only do just so much.”
But he took a step into the room, not out of it. He took four or five steps, actually, toward Felipe, and stopped above Felipe’s chair and looked down, and his eyes looked soft. Felipe looked up and smiled sadly.
“What does ‘lo siento’ mean?” Billy asked quietly.
“It means she’s sorry.”
Billy bent down and hugged Felipe around his shoulders, kind of quick and careful. Like he’d better not hug too long or too hard.
“Lo siento,” Billy said.
“Gracias, Billy.”
Then Billy raced out the door. Raced. Even Grace didn’t manage to get places that fast, and she was a kid.
“I’ll go next,” Jesse said.
Everybody looked up as if they’d forgotten Jesse talked.
“Don’t look so surprised. I just thought I’d give you a chance to know me a little bit. Since I’m new here. And since I’ll only be here a few months.”
Nobody argued, so he did.
“I grew up near here. Actually, I grew up about four blocks from here. Which is part of why I picked this apartment. So close to where I used to live. Lot of memories. Of course, it’s changed a lot. And, then, the other reason I picked it is because I need to save as much money as I can. I’m on a six-month leave of absence, and my savings will only go just so far. They’ll stretch, I think. But barely.
“Anyway, I live in Chapel Hill. North Carolina. I left L.A. to go to college there, and I never came back. The only reason I’m here now is because my mother is dying.”
Grace opened her mouth to speak. She had tons of questions. A whole brain full. She wanted to ask how soon Jesse’s mother was going to die, and of what, and how close he was to her, and if it made him so sad he could hardly stand it. And if there was anything she could do to make him not so sad, even though she didn’t figure there was, not with a big, awful, sad thing like that. But she never got to. Then again, she never had to. Jesse was a good talker. You didn’t have to drag anything out of Jesse. He just opened the door and out it came. That was a new one as far as Grace was concerned.
“Funny thing about me and my mother. We never really got along. Never saw eye to eye. On just about anything. We had a very volatile relationship.” Then, before Grace could even open her mouth to ask, he said, “That means explosive.” As though he could read her mind. “I think most everybody who knew us thought we didn’t like each other. Maybe even that we hated each other. I tend to think of it more as a ‘fierce bond.’ If we didn’t love each other a lot, there’d be no place for all that fire. It’s love, and then it’s the flipside of love. We happen to have a lot of both.
“So I guess people figure it’s not as hard to lose your mother when you never got along anyway. But they’re wrong. They’re dead wrong. It’s always hard to lose your mother. Always. If you loved her, if you hated her. If she smothered you, if she ignored you. It doesn’t matter. She’s your mother. Your mother. That’s just a very tough bond to break.”
Grace opened her mouth to speak, and began to cry. Within seconds it morphed into sobbing. Full-on, uncontrollable sobbing.
It brought the meeting down, and fast.
Suddenly everyone was huddled around her, too close to her, on her, not letting her breathe. They wanted to know if she was OK — they asked over and over — but she knew she’d be more OK if they would step back and give her some air.
“I’m going over to see my kitty,” she said, and ran out.
She stood in the hall, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve, and signal-knocked on Billy’s door.
“I can’t do any more outside time today, baby girl. I’m at my limit. I’m sorry. Lo siento.”
“I didn’t come to say that. I need to come in. Could you open the door?”
He must have heard the sobs in her voice. He couldn’t very well have missed them. The door opened almost before she could finish her last sentence.
She shuffled past him and sat on his couch.
“Good meeting so far?” he asked.
That was just Billy’s odd sense of humor. Instead of asking her what was wrong, he would make a wisecrack. But it was better than being surrounded and smothered.
Which, she suddenly realized, was why she’d come. It wasn’t really to see her cat. Well, a little bit. Partly. Mostly it was to see her Billy.
She called for Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat with a little “psst” sound, and the kitty came loping in from Billy’s bedroom and jumped into her lap. Grace held the cat close and pressed one ear against her rumbly side.
She sniffled in as much as she could, so her nose wouldn’t run on to poor Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat’s fur.
Billy sat on the edge of the couch, about two feet away from them, and handed her a giant-size box of tissues. She pulled out three or four at once, and wiped her eyes on all of them at the same time, and blew her nose too loudly, with an embarrassing honking sound.
“I sure use a lot of your tissues.”
“I can live with it.”
“Maybe I should buy you another box.”
“With what? Are you sitting on a nest egg we don’t know about? Holding out on us? You’re really independently wealthy?”
“Oh. Right.”
She blew her nose again, this time using only three.
“Anything you care to shoot the breeze about?”
“In English, Billy.”
“Want to talk?”
Grace sighed.
“I just miss my mom, is all.”
“Oh,” Billy said.
“I know she’s not a very good mom. At least, not right now. She used to be a pretty good mom, but that was a long time ago now. But even so, even though we don’t get along or anything, and even though we had a big fight and I’m mad at her, and even though she loves drugs more than she loves me, I still miss her.”
“Hmm,” Billy said.
“Maybe you wouldn’t understand.”
“Then again, maybe I would. I miss my mother every day. And she’s the most dreadful woman who ever set her feet down on the planet Earth.”
Grace snorted laughter, in spite of herself.
“She couldn’t be that bad.”
“Oh, no. She could be. And she is. You have to trust me on this. So. Meeting over?”
“I guess so. I mean, I’m the only one who even wants to have the meetings anyway, and I walked out.”
“Maybe they’ll surprise you. Maybe they’re over there spilling their guts about all the personal tragedies that resulted in their subsequent aloneness. Maybe you inspired them.”
“I’ll go see,” Grace said.
She handed the cat to Billy and padded out of Billy’s apartment and across the hallway. Once there, she pressed her ear quietly to the door.
They weren’t spilling their guts.
Jesse was apologizing for upsetting her, saying he hadn’t known he was saying anything that would make her cry.
She padded back across the hall and plunked down on Billy’s couch again.
“I didn’t think so,” she said.
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Later, when she thought she’d heard everybody leave Rayleen’s and go their separate ways, Grace headed back across the hall. And ran smack into Jesse.
Should’ve known that, she thought, silently kicking herself. Of course Jesse would hang back and try to be the last one out, so he could talk to Rayleen alone, because Jesse liked Rayleen, and any fool could see it.
Grace hadn’t wanted to run into Jesse, because she knew he’d apologize forever, and she didn’t want his apologies. They’d probably only make her cry again.
“Oh, there you are, Grace,” he said. “I thought I wasn’t going to get a chance to apologize.”
See?
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, carefully not crying. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You just told the truth like you were supposed to. Just like what the meeting is for.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” Grace said, irritation seeping through in her tone. “You think I don’t know that?”
Then she held still, waiting to see if he’d get mad back.
But he just patted her on the head and walked down the hall and up the stairs to his own apartment.
Grace watched him go and wondered suddenly how he was doing with the ghost of Mr. Lafferty the Person. Or, if not a ghost, whatever it was that had scared off Emily, their old neighbor-for-a-split-second. On the one hand she wished she’d asked him, but on the other hand she was happy to be done with all the apology stuff, and she had no intention of pressing her luck.
She looked both ways in the hallway, as if spies could be lurking around any and every corner. Then she took an unplanned turn, padding along the hallway toward her own apartment and down the stairs.
She opened the door with her key.
The place was dark. Not pitch black, but no lights on. Nothing that felt alive or moving. She found her mom in her bedroom, sprawled on her back in bed, snoring.
She moved closer, first just watching. Then she reached out and tugged at the sleeve of her mom’s shirt.
“Hey,” she said. Quietly, as if in conversation. The way people sometimes say “hey” in place of hello.
Grace’s mom’s eyes flickered open for just a second or two.
“Hey,” she said back.
“You OK?”
“Ummmm. What’re you doing here?”
“Just came to see if you’re OK,” Grace said, something snagging and catching in her throat, nearly gagging her.
Grace’s mom raised a hand, as if waving would be a good way to answer the question. But the hand didn’t stay up long. Didn’t really form into an actual wave, in fact. It just faded, and drooped, and landed on her belly again.
Grace waited, in case there was more, even though she wasn’t sure what more she hoped there might be.
That’s it, she said to herself, but not out loud. That’s all there is. All you’re going to get. You might as well go back to Rayleen’s.
But she didn’t. Not yet.
Instead she stroked her mother’s hair, just three long strokes. Then she leaned in and whispered directly into her mom’s ear.
“Love you, Mom.”
But she must’ve leaned in too close. Her breath on her mom’s ear must’ve tickled, because her mom reached up and swatted at Grace, as if Grace were a mosquito or a fly. Smacked her right on the ear.
“Ow!” she shouted, louder than really necessary, and all out of proportion to how much it hurt. It had been an indignity, one which had hurt her on the inside, and the shout had been a way of letting it move through her.
Then, just as suddenly, it made her cry.
And the crying made her leave, made her run for the door, for the safety of Rayleen’s, as though someone might see her crying if she stayed. Even though she knew, really, that nobody would have noticed. Not even her mom.
She knocked on Rayleen’s door, still rubbing her ear.
Rayleen opened it and let her in. Grace noticed a couple of little lines in Rayleen’s forehead that she didn’t see too often, like Rayleen was holding her face tighter and scrunchier than usual.
“You hungry?” Rayleen asked.
“Kind of.”
“There’s not much. It’s going to have to be peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter’s OK. Do we have any jelly?” Then she regretted her use of the word “we.” Whatever was in Rayleen’s refrigerator really belonged to Rayleen, not to both of them. Probably she’d just been very rude, and right when Rayleen was in a lousy mood, too. “You, I mean. Do you have any jelly?”
Rayleen’s head was still buried in the refrigerator.
“Strawberry jam,” she said.
Unfortunately for Grace, she didn’t say whether they both had it, or if it only belonged to Rayleen.
“Perfect,” Grace said, even though she liked grape jelly much better.
Then, while Rayleen was making the sandwiches, Grace said, “So, what do you think of Jesse?”
Grace heard the bottom of a jar slam down on the counter, startling her, but she didn’t know if it was the peanut butter or the jam.
“You’re going to have to stop this,” Rayleen said, in the voice that had almost made Grace cry earlier, at the meeting, and which almost made her cry again, now. What was it about this day? It seemed that hiding around every corner was something that could jump out and make her cry.
“Stop what? I didn’t do anything!”
“Stop trying to fix me up with a man I don’t even know.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t do anything!” Grace shouted, fighting hard with the tears. “I just asked you what you thought about him. I would’ve asked you the same thing about that other neighbor, the spooky lady, only she didn’t even stay long enough for you to meet her. Geez, Rayleen. I don’t know what you’re all upset about. He just likes you. What’s so terrible about that? I didn’t tell him to like you. He just does. It was all his idea.”
Rayleen set a sandwich on a paper plate in front of Grace, calmly, and without saying anything about anything.
Grace stared at it for a minute, noticing that she had been hungrier back when the sandwich idea first came up.
“Can I take my sandwich over to Billy’s and eat it? It’s nicer over there.”
“You can do anything you want,” Rayleen said, without much feeling.
Grace stopped at the door and looked back at Rayleen, who was washing the knife in the sink. Rayleen didn’t look up or look back at Grace.
“You didn’t used to be this grouchy,” Grace said, congratulating herself on what a brave thing it was to say.
“You didn’t used to get all up in my private stuff,” Rayleen answered, still without looking up. “Could be some connection there.”
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