A Long Thaw (8 page)

She kicks him with her other foot. ‘Shut up.’

‘Well.’ He shrugs. This is his argument.

Juliet leans her head back into the pillows. ‘You never say nice things.’ She closes her eyes and tries to lose herself in the warm, rough touch of his fingers.

They’re quiet for a long moment.

‘You and Abby do look alike.’

‘Really?’ Juliet smiles and opens her eyes.

‘It’s weird. In most ways you don’t, but there’s something. You can tell you’re related. I think it’s the eyes.’

‘She has brown eyes.’ Juliet frowns.

‘I didn’t say the colour, did I?’ He tosses her first foot aside and pulls the other towards him.

‘No,’ Juliet admits. ‘So what is it?’ She likes the idea that she looks like her cousin, that there is proof to the world that they’re family.

‘I don’t know.’ He rolls his eyes at Juliet’s expectant gaze. ‘Maybe the way they crinkle when you smile.’

Juliet nods, satisfied.

‘Really, she’s pretty plain, though. You’re much prettier.’

Juliet’s unable to take this as a compliment, since it’s all tangled up in an insult for Abby. She pulls her feet away and slides them under the covers.

Jesse gets into bed next to her. When they were both starting adolescence, Abby and Juliet had each envied the other. Abby thought Juliet’s golden curls were gorgeous; Juliet longed for Abby’s silky, straight style that looked the same in and out of the pool, that didn’t frizz on humid days.

Over the years, Juliet has come to terms with her curls, learned to see their beauty. Still, she thinks Abby’s beautiful. She has dramatic dark eyes and lashes and a fashionable bob. She wears stylish rectangular frames when she’s reading. She looks hip and smart and interesting. Not plain at all.

Jesse rolls onto his stomach and drops the lotion bottle in Juliet’s lap. ‘My turn.’

On Saturday night, Juliet wakes to a sound she identifies first as a cat’s mewing. It’s after three o’clock. She lies in her bed, listening, and it stops. She begins to drift back to sleep but it starts up again and she realizes it’s coming from the other side of the wall.

The wood floor is cold and rough on her bare feet. She takes each step deliberately, imagining the possibility of splinters. Light spills out from the edges of Abby’s bedroom door. She knocks twice and the sobs halt abruptly.

Juliet pushes the door open slowly and is unprepared for what she sees. Abby’s lying on her back with a hand covering her face. There’s blood everywhere, all over her chest and pillows and sheets.

Juliet feels her knees weaken as she takes a sharp breath. She tries to will herself to speak, to step into the room, but she’s frozen in the doorway.

Abby begins to laugh. ‘It’s just my nose,’ she says, her voice muffled beneath her hand and a wad of sopping red Kleenex. ‘It’s just a bloody nose.’

Juliet’s lungs release the breath they’ve been holding. She walks closer. ‘I thought I heard you crying.’

‘I was.’ Abby laughs again. ‘It was so disorienting to wake up this way. It must have been bleeding for a while before I woke. My God, I must look like I’ve been shot or something.’

‘Yeah.’ Juliet rubs her eyes. ‘Sit up.’

Abby looks at her sceptically.

‘It’ll never stop bleeding if you lie back like that. It’ll keep running down the back of your throat.’ Juliet sits on the edge of the bed.

‘Eew.’ Abby sits up. ‘Are you sure? I thought they told you to lean your head back. That’s how they do it in all the movies.’

‘Yeah. In all the movies.’ Juliet takes the soiled tissues and hands Abby a clean one. ‘Now, pinch.’ She walks down the hall, returning with a wet washcloth, fresh pillowcases, and the bathroom trash can.

‘You don’t have to do all this,’ Abby says. She’s sitting cross-legged in the bed, holding her nose. Her dark hair is sticking up in the back and she looks small.

‘I don’t mind.’ Juliet collects the used tissues.

She is small, Juliet realizes, with an odd surprise. In the years since they were thirteen, Juliet has grown inches and stands close to five-eight. She had a substantial growth spurt during her freshman year of high school. But Abby seems not to have grown much at all. Of course, in a way, Juliet must have noticed it before. But this is the first time she feels aware of this difference between them, experiences herself as somehow larger than Abby. She’s
petite
, Juliet thinks. Especially now, with her face puffy from sleep, letting Juliet care for her, she seems childlike.

‘Does blood freak you out?’ Abby asks, taking the washcloth and wiping her neck.

‘Not if I know it’s coming from your nose.’ Juliet rips the top sheet off the bed and tosses it onto the floor. ‘The blankets look okay. Pass me your pillows.’

Abby does as she’s told. ‘I feel like I’m five and I peed the bed.’

Juliet helps Abby wipe her hands clean, a task she’s been struggling to do one-handed. She bends to gather the bloody sheets and takes them to the bathroom to soak in the tub.

‘It’s so weird,’ Abby calls after her. ‘I never get a bloody nose.’

‘Probably the change in the weather.’ Juliet walks back in and holds her hand out. ‘Tissue.’

‘The one I’m using?’

Juliet nods.

Abby hesitates, but eventually releases her nose. She waits, holding her palm open beneath it. ‘It stopped?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Juliet stands at the foot of the bed and tosses a new sheet over Abby. It balloons above her and settles. Juliet tucks in the corners.

‘Wow. That was fast.’

Juliet lays a towel over the clean pillowcases. ‘In case it starts again.’

Abby lies back as Juliet piles the blankets on top of her. She closes her eyes and murmurs her sleepy thanks. ‘You’re the bestest, Jules,’ she says, in the language of their childhood. She can’t know that no one has called Juliet that since her father left.

Juliet’s hand strokes the top of Abby’s hair. ‘Sleep tight.’

‘So who is in the lead?’ Jasmine asks, hanging her coat on a hook by the door. She unwinds herself from her scarf and follows Abby into the living room.

Jasmine has filled out an Internet dating profile for Abby, who is now seeing two guys at once, which she has never done before.

‘The lead?’ Abby shakes her head. ‘No one. Certainly not me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jasmine pouts, sitting on the couch next to Abby. She pulls her knit hat off, revealing a staticky Day-Glo orange. Abby indicates with a quick nod that she likes it. Jasmine’s hair colour changes so frequently that it no longer warrants a verbal response. Jasmine licks her palms and flattens her hair against her head. ‘I thought you had a great first date with . . . What’s his name?’

‘Noah. Yeah. Great first date. But our conversations have not gone beyond the stuff you talk about on first dates.’

‘So?’

‘So we’ve been out three times.’

‘That’s a lot of dates for two weeks,’ Jasmine says. ‘He must like you.’

‘I don’t know. At the end of each date, I don’t expect to hear from him again. And then he calls me. And I can’t think of a good reason to say no, but—’

‘Is there any chemistry?’

‘He’s cute,’ Abby says. ‘You know, he said something once about how he felt like he wasn’t as sexual as most guys, and at first I thought that might be a good thing. But I’m starting to think he’s not sexual at all.’

‘Oh.’ Jasmine’s face is one of horror. ‘Does he try to kiss you?’

‘I feel like I’m always initiating the kissing.’

‘Mmm. Good for you.’ Jasmine nods her approval.

Abby shakes her head. ‘I’m tired of it. And there’s even something about the way he kisses me. It’s like I can never get a hold of his bottom lip. It’s so frustrating and symbolic, I think, of him as a whole.’

Jasmine sighs. ‘Okay. And bachelor number two?’

‘Oh, my God. You won’t even believe it.’ Abby leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes. She proceeds to tell Jasmine about Chad, the good kisser with a great sense of style who suggested they rent
Brokeback Mountain
on their second date.

‘I said to him it was refreshing to meet a straight guy who was willing to watch that movie.’

Jasmine looks dubious.

‘And then he told me he’d already seen it once.’

‘Oh, my.’

‘He took my hand and held it during the whole movie. Did cute hand massaging, tickling stuff. And when the movie ended, he jumped up and said he wasn’t looking for anything serious and he just wanted to be friends.’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘I was so shocked, I just said okay. It made me mad afterwards. Who said I was looking for anything serious? He was just supposed to be a wild oat.’

‘So much for that.’

‘Yeah. Asexual and homosexual: those were my wild oats.’

Juliet arrives home before Abby most evenings. Abby leaves Post-it notes on chicken in the fridge: ‘I’m making fajitas tonight.’ When there are no Post-its, Juliet makes her ‘famous’ bacon cheeseburgers, spaghetti or frozen pizza.

Abby comes home one night in November to find Juliet wearing an apron and peering suspiciously into the oven.

‘How do you know when pork chops are done?’ Juliet asks.

‘Pork chops. Fancy. Let me see.’ Abby cracks open the oven door. ‘Mmm. Stuffing. Looks like a few more minutes maybe.’

‘I have a friend coming over.’

‘Nice. Do you want me to get lost?’

‘No, no. I want you to meet him. Jesse’s coming, too.’

‘Him?’ Abby folds her arms across her chest. ‘Juliet, is this a set-up?’

Juliet laughs. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not really Ethan’s type.’

‘Ah. Good. I’m tired of meeting guys.’ Abby sits down, relieved.

‘Already?’ Juliet laughs.

Abby nods.

‘You need to pace yourself, I think.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Ethan and I went to high school together in California.’

‘And he’s in Boston now?’

‘Yeah. Kind of wild, huh? He tends to move a lot. I’ll get a postcard every six months or so. This time he sent me a whole letter and the return address.’ Juliet hands Abby a white envelope.

‘Wow. That’s not even far from here.’

‘I know!’ Juliet presses the letter to the surface of the refrigerator and tries to find a magnet big enough to hold its weight.

‘Here.’ Abby stands and slips off a wallet-size baby’s picture, handing Juliet the magnet and tossing the photo away.

‘Who was that?’

‘Ryan’s nephew?’

Juliet places the magnet and stands back, satisfied. ‘Are you sure you’re really done with him?’

‘I never met Ryan’s nephew,’ she says, with a grin, deflecting.

Juliet ignores this. ‘You guys just seem so . . . great together.’

Abby sits at the table again. ‘Maybe we are great, just as something different.’

Juliet seems ready to argue, but the timer starts beeping and she’s pulled back to the stove.

Ethan arrives as Juliet’s setting the table. He’s tall and slim with blond hair and the grace of a dancer. He spins Juliet in his arms and hugs Abby as if they’re already friends.

‘Juliet, you’ve gotten even more beautiful,’ Ethan says, handing her his navy blue pea-coat.

‘How long has it been since you saw each other?’ Abby asks.

‘I visited her in college when I left NYU. Three years ago?’

‘Ethan decided he could learn more in the “school of life”.’ She makes finger quotes in the air. ‘Whatever happened to that guy?’

‘What guy?’

‘Wasn’t there a guy?’

Ethan sighs. ‘There’s always a guy.’

The three of them sit in the living room and Abby begs Ethan to tell her what Juliet was like in high school.

‘Oh, she was a bad ass.’

A timer beeps in the kitchen and Juliet goes to check on dinner.

‘Really? How?’ Abby asks.

‘Well, for one thing she was friends with me. Which limited her social options, you might say.’

‘You might say it was the other way around!’ Juliet yells, from the kitchen.

Ethan shakes his head at Abby. ‘Once, in the lunch room, this stupid cheerleader got in Juliet’s face for sleeping with her boyfriend.’

‘Which I hadn’t,’ Juliet adds, returning to her spot on the couch.

‘And Juliet starts walking away and the cheerleader jumps on her back. I mean, you have to picture it – she was wearing the little uniform.’

‘No, she wasn’t.’ Juliet laughs.

Ethan waves his hand, dismissing her. ‘And Juliet elbows her in the face and breaks her nose. Blood everywhere.’

‘It was an accident. I was just trying to get her off me.’

‘That girl had two black eyes for the rest of the school year. Juliet doesn’t mess around.’

Juliet shrugs. ‘It pretty much cemented my outsider status. Forced me to befriend a weird, artsy boy who painted his fingernails black and didn’t mind helping me baby-sit my sisters on the weekend.’

‘Exactly.’ Ethan nods firmly.

‘It’s hard to imagine Juliet as a tough girl. She was always so . . .’ Abby searches for the right word ‘. . .
timid
. When we were young.’

Abby pictures the way Juliet used to walk to the end of the diving board when they were small, dragging her feet slowly against the bumpy surface. She’d stand with her toes curled over the end, counting
one, two, three
with lips that made no sound. She held one arm flat against her side as she jumped, the other arm up, holding her nose. The pencil dive. She’d bob to the surface, eyes still pinched shut, and swim to the edge where she’d rub away the chlorine.

Abby had always preferred the cannonball.

‘In California, I had to be the tough one,’ Juliet says. ‘I had baby sisters.’

Abby nods slowly.

‘How are Hannah and Lilly?’ Ethan asks.

‘Let me get pictures.’ Juliet walks to her bedroom.

Ethan turns to Abby. ‘Quick,’ he says, in a whisper. ‘Tell me about the boyfriend. I’ve been hearing about him for years. What should I expect?’

‘He’s quiet.’ Abby tries to keep her tone neutral.

Ethan narrows his eyes at her.

‘I don’t know him very well. You probably know more from what Juliet says about him.’

‘I like to believe I only hear the bad things. That he’s actually much better than he sounds.’