Hot Little Hands (16 page)

“We'll probably elope, just so we don't have to invite you. But go on.”

I tell her about Sy, all the details from the beginning, and she listens while I smoke half an ashtray of cigarettes. At the end of it all, she exhales and says, “Well, you messed up, but he's wrong, too, for not wanting to talk it through. You probably don't want to hear this, but I think you have to let it go. You can't change someone who doesn't want to change. Walk away. You'll find someone new eventually, and they'll be more mature and better for you.”

“But they won't be as pretty,” I whine.

“No,” she says. “From the sounds of it, they probably won't.”

I move back to my neighborhood. I buy a plant. I take it out of the store and walk it into the sunlight and down the street. Plants like sunlight. I remember that from science class. So far, as a plant owner, I'm doing okay.

Luke and Calvin are outside the Common Room playing hopscotch with beers in their hands. They stop when they see me.

“What is that?” Luke comes over to look.

“It's my new plant.”

Calvin thumbs one of the leaves and I tell him to be careful.

“Yeah, I know,” says Luke, “but what kind is it?”

“Its name is Umlaut.”

“Okay, but, Claire.” Luke puts his hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “What varietal of plant is it?”

“Varietal? Is that fancy coffee talk? I have no idea what it is.”

“Well, didn't it come with the little pointy tag that tells you the name in English and Latin, and how to care for it?”

“Yeah, it was ugly and poking into the soil, so I threw it out.”

“Come on, man,” says Calvin, standing on one foot while he polishes off his Pacífico. “Let's get back to the game.”

“The guy in the store gave me the pot for free,” I tell Luke, holding it up for him to see.

“Yeah, I'll bet,” he says. “Umlaut, take good care of Claire, please.”

“Don't ruffle my hair,” I tell him, shaking free.

I push the library catalog cards and little yellow pencils off the windowsill in my room, and find a good spot for my plant. I pour water into it from a glass, and then I sit in my desk chair and look at it. My roommate Andrew walks past and stops in the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm looking at my plant.”

He comes in and stands behind me and we both look at the plant. It looks happy, if a little lopsided.

“What's it for?” Andrew asks.

“I guess I wanted a roommate who'd shut up once in a while.”

“It'll be dead in a week.” He ruffles my hair before he leaves the room.

Really, the plant is a present from myself for myself to celebrate my twenty-eighth birthday. Which is next week. It is the way I'm going to prove that I can take care of something. I don't take proper care of myself, or my relationships. I hand my students' papers back to them weeks late, and I forget friends' anniversaries and parties, even though Google calendar reminds me every time. When I was little I had a pet rabbit who didn't get food when it was raining because I didn't want to go out in the cold. It was a London bunny; it went hungry a lot. So this plant is going to be the first thing I take care of. It is my practice dog, and maybe my practice dog will be my practice husband, and maybe my practice husband will be my practice adopted baby from the Near East.

I call up Sy and ask him to come over. He sounds suspicious. It's only been three weeks since we stopped talking. I tell him about the plant and there's slight interest in his voice.

“I just want you to help me identify the varietal. It'll take five minutes.”

He comes over and walks inside without hugging me. He enters my room cautiously, like I might have a giant mousetrap in there that will snap onto him and make him stay the night. He opens the blind to get a better look and then tells me that it's a button fern. He touches the soil. “You're giving it too much water.”

“Oh no,” I say. “I guess I love it too much.”

“Just hold off,” he says. “You should only water it when it's looking a little dry.”

I lean back against my desk. “How've you been?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah, really good,” he says. “Just tired. I worked both jobs yesterday. I'm dying right now.”

“Cool,” I say. “I've been good, too.”

He looks around my room. The bed is covered in clothes, and bowls with spoons poking out of them, books, pens, scarves, bags, badges, my laptop, my keyboard, a dozen pairs of tights, some necklaces, my tambourine. Somewhere under there are things I've been trying to find for days: my house keys, my mobile phone charger, an Agnès Varda DVD that is way overdue. The floor and the desk and the bookshelves and the closet aren't any neater.

“Look how clean the windowsill is,” I say hopefully, but he's staring at the catalog cards spilled across the floor.

This isn't going well. I invited him over to show him the plant, so he'd know that I've changed, and can take responsibility and keep a promise to something. I wanted him to know that I'm not a mess anymore, but he's standing in the middle of it, and I know it's all he can see.

I catch sight of him a few weeks later, just before he's supposed to leave for the wedding back east. He's riding north on Valencia Street, and there's a girl behind him on a cute yellow cruiser, the emo girl from the night at Connor's house. I'm walking on the same side of the street. He goes right past without seeing me, and stops at the lights.

“Have you ridden in the city much?” he calls to the girl. “You have to weave in and out of cars a bit. Don't hesitate. Just be clear about what you're doing. And make sure you don't get doored.”

“Okay,” she says. They turn the corner onto Market Street and I watch them ride away.

I wish I could say that I feel nothing, but I feel something. I wish I could say he isn't pretty anymore but of course he is, though he looks different somehow, smaller and less vivid, like a postcard reproduction of some painting I once got to study up close in a museum. By now, I have stopped hoping that we will get back together, and started hoping that one day I'll quit wanting him to call. That sometime after that, I'll run into him again. That maybe then I will be able to look right at him and see exactly what he is, what he always was, and what he should already be to me now: just another kid on a bike.

E
lise and Jenni lost their virginity at twelve and thirteen, respectively. But they were nine months apart in age, so it had happened for both of them at around the same time. In the three years since then, they had both hooked up with a bunch of guys—some from school, some from other schools, a couple of older guys who had already finished school. They had also kissed girls: mostly just for fun, mostly each other, mostly when drunk, mostly to drive some guy at a party insane, sometimes because they were just bored. Both of them had tried MDMA, coke, speed, and mushrooms. Jenni had also taken acid. Elise had once snorted keta, and she liked to smoke weed. But mostly they just drank. Mostly whatever, but beer was fattening and they usually avoided it.

One Saturday night in June, Jenni came over to Elise's house and they didn't go out. Elise was lying on her bed, on top of the covers, and Jenni came in and lay down next to her, head to toe, and they didn't check their phones to see what their friends were doing, and Elise didn't pull a bottle of anything from under her bed, and Jenni didn't take her cigarettes out of her bag and crack the window. They didn't put any music on, or put on their makeup, or pinch each other's sides, proclaiming that the other one was a fat bitch who wanted to fuck some unattractive member of their class at school. Elise was reading a book about horses, a book she hadn't read since she was a little kid. Jenni lay on her back, cycled her legs in the air a few times like she was at an exercise class, then curled up on her side and fell asleep.

“Lise? Girls?” At around seven, Elise's mum poked her head round the door frame: ready, probably, for the usual fight over curfews or money for taxis or a tube top that was being worn as a dress. “Oh.” The two girls were still on the bed, silent, the windows fogged up from the warmth inside and the cold outdoors.

“Shh.” Elise lifted her head and pointed at Jenni, who was asleep beside her.

“Oh,” her mother whispered. “Okay.”

“I don't know.” Her voice carried back down the hall from the living room. “They're just kind of—lying there.”

The girls were quiet and sluggish when they came out of Elise's room for dinner.

Elise's dad had gotten Japanese takeaway, and the only time either girl spoke was when Jenni accidentally dropped her chopsticks and sent rice flying onto the table and into her glass of Sprite. “Sorry,” she said, looking across at Elise, who was cracking up, her mouth half full of food. “What?” Jenni asked, then she cracked up laughing as well.

“That's all right,” Elise's dad said, smiling and shaking his head at her mum. The girls went quiet. They leaned over their bowls and lowered their chins so their faces were closer to their food.

“Did you hear about this girl at a uni in America who made a PowerPoint presentation about all the guys she slept with?” Elise's mum asked.

“No,” her dad said.

“Yeah. She had everything in there—physical descriptions, photos of the boys. Then, of course, it goes viral, and everyone can read it. I saw it on Sonya's Facebook. She had a link.”

“Was this for a class?” Elise's dad asked.

“I don't think so.”

“Honestly, I wish one of the young people at my office would make a PowerPoint presentation about anything. They won't do any admin work unless it's fun! Or creative!”

“Maybe they're on to something.” Elise's mum stirred her miso soup with the tips of her chopsticks.

Elise and Jenni didn't pay much attention. Both girls' parents were always doing this: latching on to some piece of old news months after the rest of the world had heard about it and already forgotten. It was obvious they pointedly talked about it in front of their kids, but why? To seem cool and casual? To gauge the girls' reaction and find out if they were secretly doing similar stuff? Or maybe just to amuse each other.

“Thanks for the food,” Jenni muttered. The two girls stood up, put their bowls in the sink, and went back to Elise's room.

“Check it out.” Jenni held up her phone to show Elise the text she'd just gotten: a photo of their friend Bec on a street in the city somewhere, posing with her arm around Adrian Byrne, an ex-football-player for Hawthorn. “That's totally my leather jacket.”

“She's gonna stretch it.”

“So annoying.”

“You wanna sleep over?”

“Okay.”

“You want PJs?”

“Yeah.”

Elise found two pairs of old flannel pajamas in a drawer. The girls changed, got into bed, and lay like before, head to toe under the covers. Elise turned off the light and they stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars, which Elise had pasted on the ceiling when she was a kid.

“I've never seen those stars stay so still,” Jenni said. They giggled. “Can I have Torco?”

“Why? I have him.”

“I want him. Just for a bit. Just till I fall asleep.”

“Keep him.” Elise flung the stuffed hippo toy at Jenni, who hugged him to her chest. “Don't hump him.”

“He loves it.”

Elise kicked her shoulder. “He doesn't.”

“Oh, Torco.”

“Don't!”

“Do hippos have, um, snouts, or—”

“Shut up.”

“Ow, that was my head.”

“Don't molest him.”

“That was Torco's head! Ow. Okay. I'll stop, I'll stop. I'm just gonna hug him. I'm hugging him. Okay.”

The girls didn't do much the following week. Jenni made a batch of lemon bars on Sunday night, and Elise went to the gym with her mum on Monday but skipped it on Wednesday. Other than that, they did a bit of homework, watched a bit of TV, messaged each other a bit, but didn't talk on the phone at all. Both girls went to bed around midnight, got up in time for school, and both of them had the glazed, lethargic, agreeable disposition of jet-lagged travelers.

Their parents were worried. “You going out tonight?” Jenni's mum asked her in the kitchen on Friday morning.

“I dunno. Doubt it.”

“Did something happen?” she asked. “Are you and Lise fighting?”

“No,” Jenni said. “Maybe I'll go over there later.”

“I'll drive you,” her mum said. And instead of her usual
It's only four stops on the bus,
Jenni shrugged and threw her crusts in the rubbish bin.

“Okay.”

That night, Elise's dad went to check on the girls and found them lying side by side, with their heads on Elise's pillow, watching something on her laptop. Each girl had one earbud in one ear; the wire hung across between their faces.

“What are you up to?”

“What?”

“What are you watching?”

“Just a show.”

“Which one?”

“It's just this English comedian. He gives celebrities drinks and interviews them.”

“Alcoholic drinks?”

“Yeah. They're all over eighteen.”

“Is it funny?”

“Yeah.”

“Shouldn't you be laughing, then?”

Elise shrugged a shoulder. “I dunno.”

At eleven the next morning, Elise's mum opened the bedroom door without knocking. The girls were still in bed. She picked Torco up off the floor and put him on the bookshelf. “What's happening tonight?” she asked.

“What?” Elise lifted her head. “Nothing.”

“No, I know you have nothing planned, but what are the other girls up to? What are Holly and Bec doing?” She reached over the desk and pulled up the blinds. Sunlight beamed through the window. Jenni covered her face with the comforter.

“I dunno,” Elise said. “I think Zach's having people over?”

“Good,” her mum said. “You're going.”

Someone had made a mash-up of Chris Brown's “Deuces” and Rihanna's “Hard” and it was playing loud when they arrived. Zach met them at the door. “Hey.” He hugged Elise. “I'm glad you came.”

“My parents made us,” she said.

He laughed. “Hey, Jen.” He hugged Jenni. “How's the puppy?”

“She's good,” Jenni said. “She's getting really big.”

“You should have brought her!”

“She'd get freaked out by all these people.”

Zach looked disappointed when they took off their coats to reveal tank tops, leggings, and Ugg boots. The girls standing around in the living room behind him were way more dressed up.

“You can chuck your stuff upstairs in my room,” he said.

“Cool,” said Jenni. “Lead the way, Lise.”

“Shut up,” said Elise.

“That was at my mum's house,” Zach said.

The girls waved at some kids in the living room, then climbed the stairs, stopping on the landing to examine a framed photo on the wall of Zach and his brother, on holiday somewhere beachy. Zach was a few years younger in the picture; he had a sunburnt nose, he was holding a snow cone, and there was a ring of blue snow-cone juice around his mouth.

“Don't look at that,” Zach called up to them.

“Why not?”

“It's private,” he said. “Dump your stuff and come get a drink.”

His room was dim and cozy. His curtains were drawn, his floor was clean, his bedside lamp was a globe of the world, lit from the inside. There was a copy of
Persepolis
on his bedside table; they were all reading it for school. Under the pile of jackets and scarves, the bed was made. Someone's phone was ringing inside a pocket or a bag.

“I'm gonna keep my jacket with me,” Jenni said, “in case I go outside to smoke.”

“Good idea,” said Elise.

“Oh. My God!” Holly and Bec screamed when Elise and Jenni came down the stairs. Then Elise hugged Holly, Jenni hugged Bec; Bec hugged Elise, Holly hugged Jenni.

“Where have you Pap smears been?” Bec asked. “We've been messaging you all day.”

“Nowhere. Just at home.”

“You've missed everything,” Holly said. “We have so much to tell you.”

“Go get drinks and meet us in the living room.”

“We're leaving soon. It's Zoe's sister's twenty-first and she said she can get us in. You should come.”

“Yeah, you Pap smears have to come.”

There were a few bottles of vodka and bourbon on the kitchen bench, but Jenni and Elise didn't feel like spirits. Jenni opened the fridge and found a half-drunk bottle of Chardonnay.

“Schmance,” said Elise. “Get that bowl of jelly snakes and let's go outside.”

They went into the laundry and stood aside as some kids from school filed past, smelling like smoke.

“Hi,” the girls said. “Hi. Hi. Hi.”

“When did you babes get here?” Nico asked.

“Where'd you get that wine?” asked Zach's brother.

“It's cold out there,” Sara-Jane said.

“We'll deal.”

The backyard was small. There was an empty clothesline in the middle of a patch of lawn, and a cricket bat lying on the ground. The girls sat down in plastic chairs at the edge of the grass. Their breath hung in front of their faces. Jenni uncapped the wine and took a sip. “Party in the USA” came on inside, and a few girls screamed their excitement.

“Should have stayed home,” said Elise.

“I know, I'm tired.”

“I'm so over it.”

They sat, hunched in their jackets, and stared out at the back fence. Jenni smoked a couple of cigarettes, lighting the second one off the first. Elise pushed her teeth down on a jelly snake and yanked it with her hand till its head broke off in her mouth. She could tell without looking that it was a yellow one. They passed the bottle back and forth.

“Did you know,” Elise said, “that most foals are born at night?”

“What's a foal?” asked Jenni.

“Seriously? It's a baby horse.”

“Am I s'posed to remember that?”

“I dunno. I'll lend you this book I have.”