Harder (Caroline & West #2)(33)

Frankie, wondering whether she should be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz or Catwoman for Halloween.

Frankie saying, hey whats up?

Saying, theres no good pizza in this town.

But it’s a week and a half before she texts me to ask if I can pick her up from school again. I’m at the library. The vibration of the phone in front of my face wakes me up from a doze, and my cheek feels overwarm where I propped it in my hand.

I wipe drool from the corner of my mouth, checking to see if anyone’s around to notice.

Nope. It’s a quiet Friday afternoon in October, a glorious fall day, and I guess most people have the sense to spend it outside.

Sure, I text back. What time?

Now.

10 min.

When I get to her school, she’s sitting on a low concrete wall. The buses haven’t left yet, but I spot her right away because she’s alone, her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes on her feet. She’s wearing black leggings and a dark top. When she shoulders her backpack, I feel a little bit like crying at her bony knees and skinny calves, her breasts too big and too soft, this baby-woman all alone.

I wish I could scoop her up and shelter her from how mean life can be. Especially how mean it is to girls, smart girls, girls with boobs, girls with no boobs.

I can’t, so I take her shopping.

Putnam hasn’t got any decent stores to shop at, but we go to the Mattingly’s outlet. Mattingly’s makes athletic uniforms. Their outlet store is full of shiny polyester emblazoned with the names and logos of obscure high-school sports teams. I buy her gigantic two-dollar basketball shorts—black with yellow insets—and a matching shirt that says “Prairieville Hornets.”

Then we hit the Salvation Army thrift store and try on all kinds of ridiculous stuff—prom dresses, overalls, a sweater dress from before I was born, T-shirts and low-rise jeans that show our ass cracks.

We go for burgers at the student union and run into Krishna, who hangs out with us for a while. It’s a good afternoon for all of us, I think. A nice break from the routine.

When I drive Frankie home, she says she wants me to come in and see her costume.

I agree with indecent haste.

The apartment isn’t very big. There’s just the kitchen and a living room plus a short hall with two bedrooms and the bathroom in between. The kitchen is divided off from the living room by a half wall topped with those wooden spires you find on a banister. There’s a lot of dark wooden cabinets.

The sink is empty, gleaming, and someone’s draped a neatly folded dishrag over the faucet.

West.

In the fridge, there’s a plate with a homemade burrito on it and a sticky note bearing West’s handwriting. Microwave about 2 min. Salsa & sour cream after.

There’s a carton of cigarettes in the freezer next to a half gallon of fudge ripple ice cream.

I dish out two bowls when Frankie comes back, and then I make her get out her homework.

The kitchen clock ticks. Ticks. Ticks. It seems to slow down with every passing minute.

When I was thirteen or so, I used to babysit a lot, and I remember this sense of anticipation—this greediness for the moment I got the kids to bed and I could roam through the house, eat frosting from the plastic tub in the fridge, open and close closet doors, bedside table drawers, bathroom cabinets.

Frankie keeps asking me to stay a little longer.

“Sure,” I tell her. “Just until you’ve taken your bath.”

“Sure, I’ll help you pick out an outfit for school tomorrow.”

“I’ll sit by your bed and talk for a few minutes.”

“I’ll rub your back until you fall asleep.”

“Sure. I’ll do that.”

And then she’s snoring softly, and I’m walking on tiptoe across the hallway to West’s bedroom.

There’s a T-shirt thrown carelessly onto the unmade bed.

A stack of books on his desk—a different desk than he had last year, a bigger mattress, an ivy-green comforter with huge pink roses that must have come with the other furnishings in this apartment because he would never buy such a thing.

Condoms in the drawer by the bed.

Lotion on top of the table, a box of tissues.

In his closet, a half-full basket of laundry, which I lift out in one big scoop and press to my face.

West’s detergent. West’s scent overlaid with sawdust and sweat, musty dirty laundry smell.

I run my finger along the line of shirts hung up in his closet, clothes I’ve seen him wear, clothes I’ve taken off him.

I open every drawer, rummage under the bed, and I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find it at the bottom of a stack, tucked inside a manila folder.

A note I left him one morning. A snapshot of the two of us that I liked enough to get it printed and give him a copy—me and West at the bakery, goofing around, flour on his nose and on my cheekbone, light in our eyes.

A printout of an email I sent him after he left Putnam.

I love you, and I’ll miss you, and I want everything good for you, West. Everything wonderful. I want you to be happy. I want you to be whole.



Two hundred dollars in twenties, tucked inside a Christmas card.

I close the folder and put it away.

I stand in his dark bedroom feeling elated and guilty.

The next thing I know, I’m in the kitchen. I take the carton of cigarettes out of the freezer and methodically open every package and empty them out into a pile on the kitchen table.