Why have I never hung out with this girl?
“Bottom line?” she says. “People around here like to put on this big front that nothing goes wrong in North Shore, but they do go wrong, terribly wrong. Again and again. Until everyone’s ready to talk about what it’s really like here for us, until people are willing to shine a light on the problems, not just on the drinking and the drug use, but the parents who give things, not time, then it won’t change. In fact, everything’s gonna get worse if nothing changes. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m done burying my friends.”
“Amen, sister.”
Before I can figure out if this is a conversation or a conversation, Mallory and Kent come bursting out the hospital’s sliding glass doors.
“He’s awake!” Mallory cries, while wrapping her arms around Elise and jumping up and down. “He’s awake and alert and he sounds like himself.”
“Wait, how do you know? Were you allowed to see him?” I ask. Elise is already blinking away tears.
The news makes me feel like I’m a helium balloon, ready to fly up into the sky the second someone lets go of my string.
“No, not yet,” Kent says. “But it’s what he said that makes us think Jasper’s back.”
“What’d he say?” Elise insists.
“First, he wanted a mirror to check his hair. Then, he asked for some gel. And then...” Mallory is giggling, her hand over her mouth. “Then he asked his ‘Mama Llama’ for ‘a dirty martini and a clean blonde.’”
“Definitely a miracle,” Kent confirms.
Elise looks thoughtful. “You know, Albert Einstein said that there are two ways to go through life. The first way is as though nothing’s a miracle and the other is as though everything is.”
I think we all know the way I go.
41
KENT
Miracles make you do stupid things.
If I hadn’t gotten another text from Stephen’s mom right after we learned that Jasper would be okay, I’d have never agreed to meet up with her.
But it did, so here I am.
Shit.
I so don’t want to be here. I’ve been standing at the Cho’s front door for the past ten minutes, motionless, like I’m rooted to the spot. This is the same place I’ve stood in a million times, the same door that I’ve banged on a million times. Yet I can’t seem to bring myself to knock for the million-and-first time.
I don’t want to step inside. I haven’t been in this house since before Stephen died. His family didn’t have a reception or anything after the funeral service. The service was just over and we left.
The great irony is that Stephen would have loved his own funeral—everyone showed up. Everyone. He never wanted to have a party, joint or on his own, because he worried no one would come. The turnout would have thrilled him. If he’d been there, he’d have made me talk about it for days afterward, too. So even the cute red-haired girl from New Trier’s Physics Olympics team was there, can you believe it? he’d have crowed. How would you assess her tear flow? Would you say she bawled (a) hard, (b) the Kim Kardashian why-would-you-say-that Vine degree of hard, or (c) Crying Guy from A & E’s Intervention hard?
I miss him.
I miss my best friend, my wingman, my cheerleader. At this point, I can’t even recall what annoyed me about him, because I miss him annoying me. I miss him getting under my skin. I miss him challenging me. I miss him being difficult. I miss him giving me shit.
“Do...do we knock or do we just live out here now?” Mallory asks, shivering in her thick Canada Down jacket, its coyote hood tied tight around her face. “Do we just camp out in this portico forever? If so, we should have brought snacks.”
When I told her I’d agreed to talk to Stephen’s mom, she insisted on coming with me. Said I shouldn’t have to do this on my own. Guess she thought I needed gatekeeping.
So I knock. Mrs. Cho answers the door.
There’s something different about her today and it takes me a minute to figure out what it is. She’s a mess. I’ve never seen her with a hair out of place or unglossed lips. But now she looks like she just crawled out of a can of potato chips. I’m used to seeing her in coordinated yoga gear when she’s not in her dressy showing-houses outfits, all starched blouses and trim skirts. I’ve definitely never known her to wear sloppy sweatpants and...Stephen’s All Eyez on Me Tupac T-shirt?
She glances down at herself with a shrug. “Laundry day. Come on in.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friend, Mallory,” I say.
“Not at all.” Previously, Mrs. Cho would have grilled everyone for ten minutes on what we were doing with Mallory. Then she’d have been all over Mal about her GPA, afraid she might somehow be a threat. But today she simply says, “Tell your mom I’m sorry I haven’t joined her at Pilates in a while.”
She invites us in and we follow her through the house and back to the kitchen. While everything in here is the same, it’s all different, too, like we’re seeing the Bizzaro World version. The air, which always smelled fresh, like lavender and cut herbs, is heavy and stale. The normally pristine hardwood floors are streaked and overrun with dust bunnies. A profusion of fingerprints dot the stainless steel fridge. Mrs. Cho used to be so anal about keeping that door spotless that Stephen and I would wrap dishtowels around our hands when we wanted to grab juice boxes.
We get to the farmhouse table in the breakfast room and Mrs. Cho has to shoo a cat—a cat!—off my seat so that I can sit. “Kent, Mallory, thanks for coming by.”
I nod, unsure of what to say, but Mallory jumps right in. “How are you, Mrs. Cho? Mom says she misses you.”
“Oh, I’m good, I’m fine,” she replies, even though she’s clearly neither. For some reason, this causes Mallory to poke me under the table, and she catches me right between the ribs with her pointy digit.
“That’s great,” I say. My face feels strained as I try to arrange it from a grimace into a smile.
This is awkward.
This is awkward and terrible, and I keep straining to hear Stephen’s feet pounding down the staircase. My body physically anticipates jumping up when he arrives, giving him the half-hug-bro-slap that we used to do.
I’ve never been here without Stephen. The house feels so big without him, so empty, so familiar and yet so unfamiliar.
“You look different, Kent,” she says.
“Stress,” I reply. “Rough semester.”
“No, not that,” she replies. “Older, maybe. More mature.”
“Again, stress,” I tell her. Pretty sure I look haggard after these past few weeks, like I’m suddenly smoking two packs a day and slugging down pints of Jim Beam instead of cans of Coke.
“Where are my manners?” she asks. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Mal and I glance into the kitchen, which is overrun with dirty dishes.
“Nothing for me,” I say.
“I just had a mocha,” Mallory tells her. “I’m good for now.”
“Okay.”
So awkward.
I can hear myself swallow. When I shift in the chair, the cushion makes a farting noise.