I was trying not to think about things as I walked. But it was hard to keep my mind blank. So I put in my earphones and listened to music. There was this guy I liked, a singer, Brendan James, and he had this song, “Nothing for Granted,” and I listened to it over and over and sang with him. So I wouldn’t have to think about anything.
But as I was walking back toward the house, the thought occurred to me that I’d like to get drunk. I’d never been drunk. And I thought it might help. If you got drunk, you didn’t think about things, did you? I was thinking stupid thoughts and doing stupid math inside my head. I was going a little crazy.
Sam (Moving In)
JUST AS I reached the front porch, the cold rain started falling. Lina’s car was parked in front of the house. I figured she’d come to visit Sam.
I could smell bacon when I walked inside. Lina and Sam were drinking coffee and talking. Maggie was sitting patiently, waiting for a crumb to come her way.
It was warm in the kitchen and I felt safe. I kept studying Dad as he served everyone scrambled eggs and bacon. Sam and Lina were talking about heading over to Sam’s house to go through Sylvia’s belongings. “You’ll want to keep some things, Samantha.”
Sam seemed calm enough. Not normal, really, but she wasn’t falling apart, either. I really wanted to know what was going through her head. No, that wasn’t right. I wanted to know what was going through her heart.
I heard my dad’s voice as I chewed on my bacon. “You’re quiet over there.”
“Yeah, don’t have that many words living inside me today.”
Sam smiled. “That’s normal.”
“Yeah,” I said, “normal.”
It was a good thing the spare bedroom was big. And it was an even better thing that it had a big closet. Dad and I cleared the closet of the crap we’d put there. Clothes we no longer wore, miscellaneous stuff we never got around to getting rid of. “Leftovers,” Dad called them. “There are always leftovers in people’s lives.” Dad said it was all going to St. Vincent De Paul, the Catholic version of Goodwill. Yup. Mima would approve of that. She was all about the Catholic thing.
It took all evening to move Sam in. “Too many shoes,” I said. “And too many blouses and skirts and pants and dresses and—”
“Shut up,” she said.
My dad and I went to pick up an antique dresser that had belonged to Sylvia. It had a big mirror attached to the back, and we set the whole thing up in Sam’s room. It was the only piece of furniture she wanted. “You can sit around all day and look at yourself,” I said.
“Shut up,” Sam said.
We kinda joked around all evening. Everything was nice and orderly, as if nothing had happened. Sam was just moving in. No big deal. Life went on. And maybe that was good. Sylvia was dead and Mima was dying, but Sam and Dad and Lina and I, we were alive. And the only thing to do was keep on living. So that’s what we were doing. We were living. Or trying to.
I was happy that Sam was going to live with us. Very happy. But Sam? Maybe she was a long way from happy.
Well, hell, I was a long way from happy too.
Behind
THURSDAY. A NORMAL DAY. Back at school. At the end of the day when I met Sam at her locker, some asshole walked by and gave her this really lecherous look. I flipped him the bird and stared him down.
“You’re feisty today,” Sam said.
“I don’t like the way he looked at you.”
“So you’re paying attention to assholes these days?”
“Sorry, Sam.”
“Things didn’t use to bother you.” But then she must have seen something written on my face. “And you didn’t use to beat up on yourself either.”
“Maybe I did,” I said. “Maybe I just hid it well.”
“Aww, Salvie.” She leaned over and kissed my shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
Home. That’s where Mima was. She’d come back home to Las Cruces.
Sam and I were settling back into the school-routine thing. We were behind, so we had a lot of homework. We stayed up late every night to catch up, and somehow homework helped us both. Sam was fiercely determined to keep up her GPA. She was little bit crazy. “No B’s,” she said, “Just A’s.”
“I’m good with B’s,” I said.
“Don’t settle,” she said.
“I’m not settling,” I said. “I just don’t want to make myself crazy.”
“I’m already fucking crazy.” She flipped the page on the book she was studying. “And you’re not far behind.”
“LOL,” I said. It was no use talking to her. I wished she’d go back to buying shoes or something. She was all over the map with those emotions of hers. Studying helped her focus. So I guess it was okay that she was diving into the waters of homework. At least she knew how to swim there. And somehow, because she was all over the map, it helped me not be all over the map. That didn’t make sense, but me and Sam, what we had, well, it had a logic all its own.
Dad had been working a lot. Said he was behind. Yeah, behind—?everyone was behind.
And it had been really cold—?which wasn’t normal for this time of year. What was up with the weather? No bueno.
I watched Sam as she read. Her eyes were as sad as they were fierce. Dad was talking to Mima on his cell. He was wearing a look. I have a word for that look: concerned. And I was wondering what kind of look was on my face. I didn’t have a word for the day.
Other People’s Tragedies
SAM WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN as I was having a cup of coffee. “It’s Saturday,” she said.
“Yup.”
“New phase.”
“New phase?”
“Pawnshops.”
“Pawnshops? You’ve already gone through that phase.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes phases boomerang back.”
“Fun. History repeating itself. It’s called recidivism.”
“A word I taught you.”
“A word you live.”
“Shut up, Sally. I’m going to ignore your lack of enthusiasm. I won’t interpret it as a lack of empathy for a person in my situation.”
“Sam, sometimes you really are shamelessly manipulative.”
“Let’s just get to it, Sally. Dave’s Loans on El Paso Street. That’s our destination.”
“The one with Elvis standing out front?”
“The very one.”
“Why back to pawnshops?”
“Because, as I’ve tried to impress upon you in the past, there’s a sad story behind every item that’s for sale in pawnshops.”
“Impress upon me,” I said. “How could I forget? So we’re into sad. No, even worse, we’re into voyeurism? Looking in on or making up other people’s tragedies. Great.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You’re weird. Fantastically weird.”
“I’m fantastically everything.” She shot me a fake smile. “Humor me.” Then she texted me. I reached for my phone and gave her one of my looks. I read her text: I’m grieving. U can deny me nothing.
I texted her back: U need a therapist.
She read the text and smiled—?then put down her cell. “No,” she said. “I need other people’s tragedies.”
Mima
I WAITED FOR SAM to get ready to go to the pawnshop. She always had to get ready. “What? We’re going to run into some bad boy you may want to flirt with?” I got the look.
I decided to call Mima. I hated the waiting thing. I heard Mima’s voice.
“Hi,” I said, as if nothing were wrong.
I could almost see her smile. “I was wondering when you were going to call me.” She said things like that when she missed me.
“Sorry, Mima.”