Once and for All(5)

She looked up suddenly, seeing me. I raised my eyebrows, and she gave me a sad smile, shaking her head: she didn’t need my help. There are times when you intervene and times when you don’t, and I’d long ago learned the difference. Some people like their sadness out in the open, but the vast majority prefer to cry alone. Unless it was my job to do otherwise, I’d let them.





CHAPTER


    2





“YOU KNOW,” Jilly said, from inside my closet, “this job of yours is really putting a damper on my love life.”

“You always say that,” I told her.

“And I always mean it.” There was a thump, followed by the sound of something falling. “Wow. Is this pink one really strapless? How unlike you. I’m trying it on. Crawford, about face.”

I looked over at her ten-year-old little brother, who was standing by my desk, studying my math textbook. He pushed up his glasses, sighed, then turned around. Meanwhile, I shifted her baby sister, Bean, to my other hip, trying to extract my hair from her tight grip. As I did, she gummed my shoulder, leaving a streak of spittle across my shirtsleeve. Since she had two working parents juggling their empire of food trucks, a visit from Jilly was always a family affair.

“Okay,” she announced after a moment, emerging in a watermelon-colored sundress that was too small for her. Also, not strapless last I checked. But Jilly liked things tight and short, all the better to accentuate her ample curves. As much as it was not my personal style—by a long shot—I had to admire her body confidence. Most girls at our school were constantly talking diets and thigh gaps, but my best friend had always been one to zig where others zagged. It was but one of about a million things I loved about her. “What do you think?”

“That there are straps,” I pointed out, coming over and wriggling one loose. “See?”

She glanced over a freckled shoulder. “Oh. Well, they’re slim at least. Pop that other one up for me?”

I did as I was told as Bean tried to reach for her, chubby fingers grabbing. Jilly always came to my house in one outfit and left in another. I had an entire rack in the closet of her clothes, as organized as my own, which she ignored every time she went in there.

“So, about tonight,” she said, wriggling an arm under the strap and adjusting her ample chest into the bodice. I was a hopeful C cup at best, and she was a legit D, so she always added to my clothes a va-va-voom factor I couldn’t even hope for. “The guys are meeting us late night at Bendo, after the last band plays. It’s that Catastrophe one.”

“Brilliant or Catastrophic,” I corrected her.

“Right.” She turned around, presenting her back to me to do the zipper. “You can come after the event. You said you’d be done early, right?”

“No. I said it was a six o’clock wedding. It’ll be ten or after.”

“That dress is too tight,” Crawford said in his signature flat monotone. It was the way he’d talked since he was a baby and the family had moved in behind us, just over the slim creek that separated our two houses. At the time, Jilly and I were ten, he was two, and the twins and Bean not even around yet. Jilly’s parents were busy when it came to everything, including procreating.

“Don’t worry about me. Just read your book,” she told him in reply, pushing up her boobs a bit.

“It’s Louna’s book,” he grumbled, and flipped a page. “Also Bean needs changing.”

So that was what I smelled. Crawford, wicked smart and socially awkward, was always a step ahead of the rest of us. Without comment, Jilly took Bean from me, plopped her on the floor, handed her one of her bracelets to gum on, and continued.

“Enough with the excuses, okay?” she said to me. “It’s been almost a year. Time to get back out there. You can’t hide behind work forever.”

“And ‘out there’ is a dirty, sticky club?”

“In this particular case, yes.”

“Germs cause viruses,” Crawford opined. “And viruses make you sick.”

“Just come, listen to some music, we’ll hit a party or two,” Jilly said to me, as Bean began crawling under my bed. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

“Wait a second. You didn’t say anything about a party. Or parties, plural.”

She exhaled loudly, this time without the benefit of a breath beforehand. “Louna,” she said, reaching out and taking me by my arms, “I’m your best friend. I know what you’ve been through, and I know you’re scared. But we are still young. Life is ahead of us. What a privilege, right? Don’t squander it.”

This was the thing about Jilly. In so many ways, she was over the top, a big, loud, spirited girl who cared not one bit what anyone thought about her. She always had at least two of her siblings in tow, co-opted my clothes, and was hell-bent on finding me another boyfriend, even if—and especially when—I didn’t want one. And yet for all these frustrations, and our absolute polar opposite personalities, every once in a while she could say something like this, heartfelt and direct and, damn it, true. Her heart, as misguided as it could be on other levels, always managed to zero out everything else. What a privilege, indeed.

“I’ll try to get there,” I told her.