Harder (Caroline & West #2)(7)

Nobody has eyes like West’s. Even West doesn’t, since his eyes look one way one day and another way the next, depending on the light and his mood and all kinds of factors I can’t pin down. I’ve wondered what it says on his driver’s license, because there is no word for the color his eyes are.

It’s trippy, seeing West’s eyes in the wrinkled face of a woman.

Other than the eyes, the resemblance is scanty. She has to tip her head way back to talk to him, because this woman is short. She’s round in every direction—boobs, hips, butt—with salt-and-pepper hair cut close to her head. She’s takes a drag off a cigarette held in her left hand, and I notice when she puts it to her lips that her fingers seem to take off in a new direction at each swollen knuckle joint.

“Will wonders never cease?” she says.

Far from a welcome. I kind of expect her to exhale right in West’s face and then slam the door, but she turns her head to the side instead and says, “Michelle, look who’s here.”

I know that Michelle is West’s mom. She looks up.

Her eyes are like dark holes punched into dough.

“Who’s that?” Her voice is hoarse, terrible to hear. I want to cover my face with my hands.

“This is Caroline,” West says.

She blinks. Rubs at her eyes. Blinks again. “Caroline who?”

Behind a closed door between the kitchen and the other room, a toilet flushes. West asks his grandma, “What’s she on?”

“She’s been like this all day.”

“Fuck.” He inhales deeply. “Can we come in?”

“Introduce us,” his grandmother says.

“Caroline, this is my grandma, Joan. Grandma, Caroline.” He points across the kitchen. “Aunt Stephanie, Aunt Heather, and my cousins Tyler, Taylor, and … I don’t know that one.”

“Hailey,” the woman named Heather says.

“Hailey,” West repeats. “Good to meet you, Hailey. I’m West.”

I shake West’s grandmother’s hand and offer a weak, “Hi.”

“I brought her to stay with Frankie,” West says.

“I’m with Frankie,” Joan replies.

“You’ve got other stuff on your plate.”

“I can take care of one kid.”

The bathroom door opens, and I recognize West’s sister at the same time her face lights up to see him. “West!”

Relief washes through me—more than I’m prepared for.

I’ve never met Frankie in person, but when West and I were together, she and I started texting. I don’t know if he’s aware that we never stopped.

Not that we swap the secrets of our hearts. Frankie’s ten. She sends me pictures of cute boys and really bad jokes. I send her links to stories I think she’d like, or I just ask her how she’s doing.

How’s school? How’s life?

I never ask her, How’s West?

I guess I figured that was over the line, but standing here now, it’s utterly hilarious that I thought I had lines. I mean, I’m in Silt, Oregon. Obviously I have no lines.

West’s got his arms around Frankie, his face in her hair, his eyes closed, and I can’t look away.

He wants me to stay here, so I’ll stay here.

He wants me to watch over his sister, so I’ll watch over her.

There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for West Leavitt.


Frankie and I bunk down that night in the attic. It’s one big low-ceilinged room full of boxes and swollen garbage bags, a broken chair, the ironing board and mop bucket. Clashing squares carpet the floor—deep brown shag next to a red Turkish print next to a pink nubbly one.

Samples from a carpet store is my guess. Not of recent vintage.

The attic makes my nose run. It started as soon as I lay down, and now my eyes are watering. I keep sneezing.

Even if I weren’t wired, it would be a joke to think I could sleep.

Frankie’s beside me, each of us with a sleeping bag on a pallet made of blankets and a thick egg-crate mattress pad. Every time I’m sure she’s finally nodded off, she moves.

Before he left, West took his sister out on the porch and talked to her for a while. Then he went into the living room with his mom and spoke to her in a low rumble while his grandma draped an afghan over Michelle’s shoulders.

I stayed in the kitchen talking to Frankie while West’s aunts talked to each other and his cousins argued loudly about who got to sleep in which bed when they got back to Stephanie’s that night.

After Michelle fell asleep, Joan drew a pocket door closed between the living room and the kitchen, and the whole crew of aunts and cousins cleared out. Frankie was only too happy for the opportunity to ask me a dozen more questions. What was my trip like? How many airplanes? Were they big or small? Where did I get my sweater? How much did my shoes cost? How long was I going to be staying, and why hadn’t she known I was coming?

I did my best to answer, but I was tense waiting for West’s reappearance. When he finally came back through the pocket door, he went straight to Frankie.

When will you be back? she asked.

Tomorrow after work. Caroline’s gonna keep an eye on you.

Anything in particular I’m supposed to do? I asked.

Stay with her. Call me if anything gets strange.