Harder (16 page)

I lean against the windows, listening to the smokers talking, joking around. I chew gum to keep my mouth busy, shove my fists in my pockets so I won’t bum a smoke off anyone.

Half the class is out here.

There’s a guy named Raffe, short for Rafael. He’s got dark skin and wild black hair like an afro except it comes to all
these points, and he wears a motorcycle jacket but he doesn’t seem like a poser.

He and this blond girl named Annie smoke and argue about art.

Surrealism. Dadaism. Warhol. Avedon. Turner. People I’ve never heard of.

I listen to them talking about some exhibit in Chicago, realize they actually drove all the way to the city, six hours in the car so they could see this exhibit at a gallery, six hours back, and they’re still fucking arguing about it.

Off across the quad, I see Caroline coming. She angles my direction and fetches up in front of me as though the wind just blew her here by accident.

She’s picked my sister up twice already since the last time I talked to her.

I’ve talked myself out of buying cigarettes six times.

“What do you think about art?” I ask.

“I don’t think that’s a question I can answer in one sentence.”

“You ever been to Chicago?”

“Sure. Lots of times.”

“Maybe I’ll take Frankie sometime. Show her that bean. Go to a baseball game in the spring, or take her by the Art Institute to look at the paintings. She’s never seen anything like that.”

Caroline’s gaze sharpens. “Have you?”

“No.” I’m embarrassed to admit it.

“You should go, then,” she says.

Raffe and Annie are looking at us. I glance down and realize Caroline’s standing close. We’re talking low. She’s rubbing her hands over her arms in her sweater. It’s long and bulky, tied at the waist. It looks warm, but obviously it’s not warm enough for the chill.

“You should get going,” I tell her.

She looks at her watch. “I should. See you.”

She waves goodbye to Raffe and Annie. Calls them by name. Caroline knows all kinds of people. Everybody likes her.

I watch her cross the quad. The wind blows her hair around and catches the panels of her sweater, whipping it open with every stride.

If I ever learned to paint, I’d paint her just like that.

Halloween’s on Friday. When I get home from work, Caroline’s in my kitchen, asleep at my table at three in the morning.

Next to her elbow is a case of Monster energy drinks like the ones she used to bring me at the bakery.

“Rise and shine,” I say.

When she lifts her head, she smiles. All the way, like the sun coming up.
Rise and shine
.

Then her elbow bumps the Monsters, and a cloud drifts over her expression.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Nothing to be sorry about. Unless you destroyed some other property of mine?”

Her nose wrinkles. “Yeah. I was feeling bad about that.”

“Really?”

“Well, the money part. Krish told me how much a carton of cigarettes costs. I brought you these to make up for it. I figured if you’re going to get addicted to a stimulant because you’re running yourself ragged, energy drinks are a better choice.”

“Thanks.”

She gets to her feet. I don’t want her to leave. “What’d you and Franks do today?”

“I took her to the Student Senate meeting.”

“You on the senate now?”

“Yeah.”

“How is it?”

“Scintillating.”

She tosses her hair behind her shoulder. It’s a lot longer than it was last year, almost halfway down her back. I want to gather it up in my hands and feel if it’s heavier. Feel if it’s different.

She’s too skinny, I know that much. And in this light, the circles under her eyes are obvious.

When she was with me, I’d help her get back to sleep if she woke in the night.

“You talk to her yet?” she asks.

“Who, Franks?”

“About the bus.”

“No.”

I need to. It’s not just Caroline saying so—I get these emails from the counselor at Frankie’s school, who’s got her coming in to his office once a week so he can make sure she’s “settling in.” He keeps suggesting we get together for a little chat, but I can’t imagine anything good coming out of that.

Bottom line, I go in to see him, he’ll find out something I don’t want him to know. Something about murder and mayhem, something about my work schedule leaving Frankie alone for hours on end, something about me being twenty-one years old, too young to have complete responsibility for a ten-year-old kid.

I read his emails, then delete them.

Caroline’s frowning. “She’s having a hard time at school.”

“Everybody has a hard time at school.”

That makes the little V-shape between her eyebrows
deepen. “No, this is worse than that. Something shitty happened today. She was crying in my car after I picked her up.”

“What about?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Fuck.” I shove my hands in my pockets, rocking back on my heels. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“If you want me to try to talk to her, I could—”

“Let me deal with my own shit.”

I say it too harsh, then wish there was a way to take it back.

“God forbid anyone should try to help you with your shit, West.”

“I don’t see why you’d want to.”

“Yeah, so you’ve said. Forget it.”

“I’m trying.”

She shoots me a glare, which I deserve, and starts packing up her stuff. The light gleams in her hair. I soak up the green of her sweater, the way her jeans hug her ass.

I’m a dick.

I’m a dick for ogling Caroline’s ass, but mostly I’m a dick because I haven’t talked to Frankie. I don’t want to know what’s going on with the bus because I haven’t got an alternative. Either she takes the bus or I quit my job.

I should quit the job.

The hours are convenient, though, and the pay is good, so instead I’m a dick to Caroline, whose car my sister’s crying in.

I don’t know how to do this. Any of it. Not Frankie and school, not work and having a kid and keeping up with classes, not Caroline in my kitchen in the middle of the night trying to help me when I can’t hardly look at her without wanting to apologize to her or kiss her or both.

Most of the time, both.

I wind the new spare key off my key ring and hold it out. “So you can lock up.”

“Thanks.” She steps closer to take it. “Are you all right?”

I’m drowning. I’m exhausted. I miss you
.

I’m such a fucking mess, I feel like people can smell it on me—incompetent panic, guilt, worthlessness—and then she’s here, and I don’t get it.

I can’t make her leave.

I can’t figure out what to say.

“I’m fine.”

Caroline takes another step toward me.

I shove my hands into my back pockets and look at the floor, because if I don’t—

“All right,” she says.

All right.

After she leaves, I heat up lasagna in the microwave. I check the heat before I go to bed.

Even under the covers, I can’t seem to get warm.

At breakfast the next morning, Frankie tells me, “I need different clothes.”

“We just got you different clothes in September.”

“They don’t fit me anymore.”

I look her over, trying to figure out if that can possibly be true. It hasn’t even been two months, but maybe she’s changing without me noticing.

“What doesn’t fit, your pants? Shirts?”

“All of it.”

“You’ve got nothing that fits.”

She nods her agreement.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Caroline telling me you had a real shitty Halloween, would it?”

“No.”

“Because she says—”

“I just need new clothes,” Frankie insists. “I’m too fat for all the clothes you bought me.”

Then she dumps what’s left of her breakfast in the trash, sets the plate in the sink, and walks out.

I watch her go. Her pants fit just fine. The shirt’s maybe a little shorter than it was when we bought it? She’s got hips now. Boobs I try not to look at, because I can’t get used to them on my kid sister.

“Where do you want to go?” I call to her back.

“The thrift store.”

“I can buy you new clothes,” I say, exasperated. “It’s not a problem, only I’m trying to understand—”

“Just drive me to the thrift store, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

I have reading to plow through for Russian history first. Frankie spends the morning on the couch watching cartoons and drawing pictures of horses.

After lunch, we go shopping. She piles my arms high with jeans and sweatshirts. Everything she picks out is huge. Leggings she has to roll at the waistband, Putnam College hoodies that come down below her butt.

“This shit doesn’t fit you,” I say.

“You’re the one who’s always telling me my clothes are too slutty.”

“I never said that.”

“You said I couldn’t wear my costume without a coat over it.”

“That was a costume, not your clothes,” I tell her. “And it wasn’t your fault—all the costumes are like that now. I should’ve looked before we bought it.”

She pushes a sweatshirt into my arms. “This is what I want.”

I’m trying to make eye contact. Trying to connect with her. “If something’s going on with you at school, we should talk about it.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m dumb. You cry in Caroline’s car, you tell me out of the blue you need all new clothes that cover you up like a tent, something’s going on.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened at school?”

“Nothing happened.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t give a shit if you believe me.”

“Franks, look, whatever’s going on, changing your wardrobe is probably not going to fix it. Think about it. You’re too smart for this.”

“Yeah, well maybe I don’t want to be smart.”

Hearing her say she doesn’t want to be smart—it lights a fuse.

I want to shake her, tell her smart’s all we’ve got. Smart is what’s going to save her ass from Silt, keep her from turning into Mom, keep her from turning into
me
.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

She huffs an exhale. “God. Never
mind
.”

I grip her arm. “Don’t take that tone with me. I should be writing a paper right now, but I’m here with you, and I think you owe me—”

“I don’t owe you anything!” She pulls away and shoves me
hard enough to rock me back on my heels. “Buy them or don’t. I’ll be in the truck.”

I stand between the racks of clothes in the aisle of the Salvation Army with no idea what I’m supposed to do next.

Wishing I could ask Caroline.

Monday morning, I stop at the student cafe in the Forum for some coffee and see Caroline alone at a table with a book in front of her and a doughnut on a napkin, untouched.

Chocolate cake doughnut, glazed. Her favorite.

I sit down across from her, pick it up, take a big bite.

“Dick,” she says.

Without looking up, she kicks me in the shin.

Sitting there, I eat the whole doughnut. The sun’s shining in the windows across the front of the Forum, bathing her in light. She reads with her mouth slightly open, pushing her tongue into the gap between her teeth. She’s switching from her book to a stack of note cards covered in highlighter, and I recognize the format. She’s got a Latin quiz.

“Want me to help with your verbs?”

“No. Quit distracting me. I only have ten minutes.”

I walk up to the counter and buy her a replacement doughnut.

She doesn’t say another word to me, and it’s still the best fifteen minutes of my day.

When I come home at two a.m. after my shift that night, I find her pecking away at her laptop in my kitchen.

“You know the library’s open, right?” I ask.

“Mmm-hmm.”

I open a bag of corn chips. Put some in a bowl so she can share if she wants.

She plucks out a chip. “What’s your job like?”

“Boring.”

“What do you do?”

“Whatever they tell me.”

“What’d you do tonight?”

“Measured stuff. They won’t let me cut yet.”

“Is cutting more fun?”

“It would be different. I’ve never used a miter saw, but you can do tricky cuts, like when you’ve got to cut 30 degrees on the X axis and 45 on the Y—I want to see how that works. Or I’d like to drive the forklift.”

“When do you get to do that stuff?”

“Not for fucking ages. What are you writing about?”

“Victorian periodicals.”

“Fascinating.”

“No, it’s good. We had to pick a topic that there were lots of articles about and read a bunch of different journals. I picked the Irish problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Basically, they wanted independence.”

“Such a fucking hassle, those Irish.”

She smiles.

“You want a beer?”

I ask without thinking about it. I don’t want to think tonight. I’m sick of it—sick of everything being difficult all the time. I want to do something easy. Beer, couch, Caroline.

“At two in the morning?”

“I’m all jacked up. Probably won’t sleep for a while.”

“Why are you jacked up if work was so boring?”

“Those Monsters you bought me.”

It’s only partly true. I’m jacked up on her being here, and I’m jacked up because Frankie still won’t talk to me.

I stayed up all last night writing the last of my final projects to clear my incompletes. I’m so far behind on sleep, I don’t feel like I need it at all.

“You want a beer or not?” I ask.

“Sure. I’m about out of brilliant thoughts for the night anyway.” She rolls her shoulders.

I snag two beers from the fridge and find a napkin to spit the gum I’ve been chewing into so I can eat. She’s raising an eyebrow at me when I turn around. “What’s with the gum?”

“Helps with not smoking,” I admit.

“You really quit?”

“Trying.” I open the beers and hand her one. “I need to sit.” I grab the chips and head for the couch, where I turn the TV on to an infomercial for some kind of food chopper. She follows me in and takes a seat on the other end.