Georgie, All Along (71)

“But I didn’t make any mark. Below-average student. No clubs or sports. Didn’t go to college. If I made a mark, it’s the kind that Mrs. Michaels remembers, you know?”

I don’t think I have to say that I do, in fact, know. If I made a mark, it’s worse than the sort Georgie did. But also, I saw the way Mrs. Michaels looked at her that day in Nickel’s, and I know why it hurts, why it made her feel small. Reduced to the moments where she was trouble for someone else. Me and Georgie, we fit in this way.

“I made a mark at my jobs over the years, but they were invisible marks. That was the point of me. Fade into the background so that my bosses could make the marks.”

She shakes the can again. Clack clack, clack clack.

“So you want to get your initials on there. See what it’s like to make a mark?”

She lifts her head, and it’s too dark to see her eyes, but I can tell she’s looking at me. “Yeah,” she says, her voice quiet but intense.

This is so important to her, this experiment, and I know in my gut she’ll need me—someone who understands her the way I do—out there with her. If I don’t want to stand under these bleachers all night arguing about my promise, I know that I have to be in it with her—that I have to give her a reason of my own for wanting to try this out.

Surprisingly, it’s not difficult to come up with one.

“I want to do it because everyone else did,” I say.

“What?”

“I mostly didn’t do anything anyone else did; I pretty much did the exact opposite, on purpose. I’ll see how it feels to do this.”

I don’t add that it’s not about anyone else. It’s that I’m sure my brother and sister both did this, the kind of good, clean fun that’s not “allowed,” but that everyone in charge gives a knowing wink to, that my dad would’ve thought was okay. Spray-painting my initials on a rock is the closest thing to a shared experience I’ll have had with my siblings in years.

Clack clack clack.

“Okay,” she finally says. “But you have to promise you’ll run if someone comes.”

“I promise,” I tell her.

But this time, we both know I’m lying.

*

ALMOST AS SOON as we get up close to the rock, Georgie gets distracted from making her mark.

She’s contemplating where Annabel’s initials should go, weighs the pros and cons of all the options—vertically, along the side; horizontally, in the center; diagonally going up or diagonally going down. She’s given up any pretense of whispering and is mostly running through these thoughts at regular volume, as if it’s broad daylight and she’s somewhere totally innocuous. I’d warn her, but then she tells me she has the best idea, and that’s getting onto my shoulders so she can do Annabel’s initials way at the top.

“That’s what she’d want.” She’s already moving into position behind me, pushing on my shoulders.

“Be quick,” I tell her, as I bend down. “I’m old, you know.”

She laughs as she settles her weight over me, one leg draping over my shoulder and then the other. Getting into the position for a chicken fight isn’t inherently arousing, but Georgie’s thighs anywhere close to my face is, and I have to breathe slowly through my nose to keep myself from getting worked up enough that standing is a problem. When I finally do, my hands firm on Georgie’s shins, she whoops and clutches at my hair and then whispers “Sorry!” but I’m pretty sure she’s talking to the quiet night air and not to my scalp.

She clacks the gold paint can, makes a contemplative hmmm noise.

“Anytime, Mulcahy.” I squeeze her shins.

“That’s fun, you calling me Mulcahy. That’s teen-movie crush fun. You’re really leaning into this going back in time thing.”

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to be leaning into a chiropractor’s office come Monday. I don’t have a teenager’s spinal column.”

She snorts a laugh. “Get closer. Should I do all caps? Or all lowercase? Cursive?”

I pretend to lose my balance and she whoops again, but then the cap of the spray paint can lands on the grass beside me. “Okay, I’m ready.”

I lift one hand off her shin, grab my phone from my pocket, and flip on the light, pointing it up. Georgie gets quiet—concentrating quiet, and I don’t want to rush her, even if it means I herniate something. But after a few seconds, I hear the familiar aerosol sound as Georgie makes her way through her best friend’s initials.

When she’s done she taps gently at my forehead, and I lower to my knees, holding on to her hands as she moves herself off my shoulders, leaving all her warm heat behind.

“That looks good, right?” Her voice sounds a little funny, but maybe she’s winded.

I look up, and sure, it looks good, as good as I imagine is possible when you’re up on someone’s shoulders and you’ve never graffitied anything before. The Y looks like a V. But that funny note in Georgie’s voice—it’s the same as the one that told me I needed to come out here with her. I know my answer matters.

“Real good.”

“I messed up the Y.”

“No, you didn’t. Come on, let’s do yours.”

But beside me, I can tell Georgie’s lost her nerve. She tugs at her ball cap, looks down toward her boots.