Finding Mr. Brightside (2 page)

“Sorry,” she says, pulling her hand back.

“You like Big Red, too?”

“I was getting it for my dad.”

“Same,” I say. “For my mom, I mean.” Except I’m sure the last thing this enigmatic girl wants is for our surviving parents to have something in common, too. I hold out the gum to her. “You go ahead.”

She shakes her head. “I’ll find something else.”

I wait, watch as she selects a box of Hot Tamales and then turns back to me.

“What are those?” Juliette asks, pointing to the circulation socks in my basket. Unclear why I thought they were such a good idea fifteen minutes ago, I hand them over. She takes them, examines the label for a second. “My dad needs these. He never gets out of his swivel chair.”

“My kind of guy.”

She doesn’t smile. I offer her the socks and she accepts, thanks me, and situates them in her left hand with the Hot Tamales. At the same time, the giant purse slung over her right shoulder is looking heavier by the minute.

“Want to put your stuff in my basket until you’re ready to pay?”

“Not really.”

“Cool.”

Her free hand reaches around toward her bun. She contemplates taking her hair down, then decides against it. Then she goes through these motions again and arrives at the same conclusion.

“Sorry, I’m not the best at making conversation,” she says.

I act like this is the craziest self-assessment ever—“What? Noooo, you’re good”—probably overdoing it.

“You have a dog?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I say mysteriously, thinking I’ve missed something. “Why?”

Juliette points to the dog treats I forgot were in my basket.

“Sorry, yeah. A golden retriever.”

Her mood goes from dark to darker before I can do anything about it. I have to hold myself back from making a physical-contact-based gesture that wouldn’t be appreciated.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“Yes, with my dad … He doesn’t believe in family pets.”

I stop myself from mentioning that my dad had a similar policy, one that my mom and I conveniently forgot about on our way to the dog breeder’s place.

“That’s disappointing,” I say.

“Agree.” Then Juliette’s stomach growls, and I consider offering her a biscuit as a joke, but it wouldn’t be funny.

“Hungry?” I say, because I can’t help myself.

“Not at all.”

I’m amazed by how resolutely she’s able to ignore the growl.

“In that case, I think there’s an animal living inside you.”

Her stomach growls again, louder this time, more like a roar. She still doesn’t flinch.

“I was going to stop by Taco Bell after here, if you, uh…?”

The scrunched-up nose she gives me back indicates she has other plans. Then she tells me she’s jogging home, and it’s my turn to make a scrunchy face.

“Just keep me company for ten minutes,” I bargain, minus any chips. “I’m more fascinating the longer you’re around me. Promise.”

No response.

“Their drive-thru is the fastest in town.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay…?”

“Okay, I’ll go to Taco Bell with you for ten minutes.”

The speedy-drive-thru angle is what sold her? Both confused and thrilled by her sudden change of heart, I watch as she power-walks toward the prescription pickup area, hoping this is the beginning of something that has a lot more of her in it. I start walking over to join her, but then change my mind, not really wanting Juliette to watch me sign for a big bag of Paxil. Nope, I’ll just get it tomorrow.

Waiting outside at the Redbox next to the entrance, I look over to my car and remind myself to drive well below the speed limit. The last thing I need is Juliette worrying I’ll take a thirty-five-mph curve going seventy and roll the vehicle three times. Like my dad did that night, a year ago, with Juliette’s mom in his passenger seat.

3

Juliette

M
Y DAD WOULD
never approve of my riding in Abram Morgan’s SUV, so it’s a good thing I have no plans to tell him about it. Abram overcautiously drives through to the fluorescent Taco Bell menu and orders something called a Doritos Locos Supreme. Five of them. I make a bizarre
yum
noise and tell him I’ll have what he’s having, sounding like a foreign exchange student.

I offer to pay as Abram pulls up to the window, but he insists. I insist back, telling him I have this thing about not owing people money. (Just don’t want to owe him anything.)

“I get it,” he says, finally accepting my card. “I keep forgetting to take my wallet to school, and I owe two or three people lunch money right now—not a good way to live.”

He doesn’t get it, but it’s considerate of him to downplay my issue by bringing up one of his. I should say something nice about him in return.

“I like your heated seats.”

“Thanks,” he says, smiling.

Abram still hands the cashier his card. I can’t protest because I’m attempting to dry-swallow a pill chunk (I like to break my two-pills-per-day dosage into quarters under the delusion I’m taking more). I manage to cough it down, smiling innocently as he looks over and asks if I’m okay. Thinking the smile is for him, the cashier gives me a perverted look like he knows his way around a taco. Please make it stop. Abram asks for extra packets of mild sauce and drives away.

Look at Abram Morgan behind the wheel, sunroof open, wind in his hair, an overstuffed sack of questionably Mexican food between his legs. Okay, enough. I’m not going to be the girl who pulls him up by the straps of his flip-flops, prunes his scraggly sideburns with a nose-hair trimmer, and transforms him into four-year-college material.

But I’ll admit that there’s a hopelessly endearing quality to him. And coexisting with someone else who’s halfway to orphanhood definitely takes the pressure off. Neither of us feels like we have to give the other a bouquet of daisies just for getting out of bed and taking things one pill at a time.

“Why didn’t you pick up your Paxil at CVS?” Rude of me to ask this right as he’s taking his first bite.

He doesn’t seem fazed, just resumes the bite while making a noise that sounds like a question mark.

“Sorry, I saw a bag of pills next to mine with your name on it.”

“S’okay,” he says, swallowing. “Honestly? I was embarrassed. Thought you’d think I was weird for being on an antidepressant.”

I raise an eyebrow and point to the prescription bag sticking out of my purse.

“Your doctor put you on one, too?” Abram asks.

“I’m sure he would have if I hadn’t faked my ADHD symptoms.”

Abram thinks I’m joking and laughs, saying, “Crazy how quick they are to prescribe meds these days, you know? I’ve never been able to tell if mine are working.”

“So why take them?”

“Hmm,” he says, “habit?”

A few tacos later, Abram is pulling up the driveway of my house before I can tell him to park anywhere else. The blinds covering my dad’s office window remain in place.

“I don’t feel like going in there,” I say, reaching for my purse.

“Then come over to my house,” Abram offers. “My mom is at the casino with my aunt. They’re winning right now, so it could be a while.” He hands me his phone so I can see a picture of his mom—an attractive, harmless-looking blond with buxom to spare—bending down beside a slot machine and smiling. “She’s pretty,” I say, relieved that it’s true. Abram smiles. I can tell he’s proud of her, worries over her, loves her … mostly because I’m reading some of their texts right now. Lots of tech-support questions from her about her iPad and patient responses from him.

“Give me two minutes to lie to my dad,” I say, handing back his phone.

“Take your time.”

*   *   *

I find my father hiding from the world in his cluttered den, sitting at his desk reading several opened books at once. Ben Flynn is a full-time novelist who’s been working on his first book for the last twenty years, thanks to a large trust fund he inherited from his grandfather. Considering I’ve permanently borrowed his credit card, I’m not one to judge. Tonight he’s dressed in his favorite flannel shirt and sweatpants, his hair sticking out in Einstein-inspired tufts. A mug of thick, black coffee sits cold in front of him; that’s actually how he likes it. Don’t touch his papers! There are passwords written all over them, and he gets nervous.

I wish he’d let me burn down that old dollhouse perched on the table behind him. It’s his real-life inspiration for how the serial-killer character in his book plotted his murders, right down to the last ketchup-blood stain and overturned piece of mini furniture. If Dad ever finishes
The Dollhouse Killer
, no one will publish it because it’s basically a rip-off of this one
CSI
episode that he doesn’t remember watching and I don’t have the heart to remind him he’s seen.

Careful not to disturb his rhythm, I set the box of Hot Tamales next to his coffee. He looks up from his book and does his best to turn up the corners of his lips. I do the same, re-creating his pain; it’s only fair.
Hi, Dad.

“Get yourself some new socks?” he asks, popping a Hot Tamale into his mouth and pointing to the pair in my hands.

“They’re for you,” I say, placing them on his desk. He reaches out and runs his fingers along the circulation-improvement material, his sleep-deprived eyes full of gratitude he can’t express without stumbling over his words.

“How’s the writing coming?” I ask.

“Technical difficulties,” he says, pointing to the blue error screen of his 1990s computer. My eyes roll over to the unopened MacBook Pro box leaning against the wall next to his desk. Mom’s gift to him two Christmases ago. Even as she was avoiding him, or screwing him over, which I believe she was at that time, Mom kept trying to help my dad stop being his own worst enemy. He hated the laptop, and she knew he would, but she still took the risk. I always admired her fearlessness. In contrast, what did I get him that year? The safe bet: socks and an ink cartridge for his equally ancient printer. He loved them.

“I’m going back out for a few minutes,” I say. “Heidi’s having lady problems.”

Dad shudders and peeks out the window. “You sure that’s her car?”

“What?”

“Doesn’t Heidi drive a white Volvo with expired license plates?”

“Impounded. That’s her mom’s car.”

He takes off his reading glasses, his gaze steady and full of skepticism. “Or is it the Morgan boy’s?”

I shrug like it could be his car, too, wondering why I didn’t tell Abram I’d meet him at his house.

“What’s the point of this, Juliette?”

“I don’t have an answer to that.”

Dad leans back, runs his fingers through his hair, mulls over this unlikeliest of plot developments. “I’m sure you can understand why I wouldn’t want you riding around in a car with the son of
that man
.”

“Yes, Dad … but I’d understand more if we weren’t just going right down the road.”

“Most accidents occur five miles from home.” He starts talking about this teenage girl he saw on the news who ran into a mailbox and killed herself. Unless she had a gun in the car, this outcome sounds highly unlikely, but I don’t interrupt; my dad should get the words out of his system after spending all day, alone, in this dank room, trying to force them onto the written page.

When he runs out of cautionary tales, I say I’m going to walk instead, acting like it’s a compromise that benefits him, too.

“Did you get the edits I e-mailed you earlier?”

Dad nods. “Thank you. You’re the real writer in the family, you know.” I walk over and kiss the top of his head, tell him that’s not even close to true.

“This isn’t like
a date
or anything
,
is it?” he asks as I’m walking out the door.

“It’s nothing,” I assure him. “Just wondering if he’s someone I should hate.”

I point to the computer like he could maybe use that line in his book, lock the front door behind me, and walk back toward Abram’s car. He’s right where I left him, eating.

He rolls down his driver’s-side window. “Not bailing, are you?” he asks, already disappointed.

“Walking,” I clarify, glancing back toward my house one last time.

Abram doesn’t ask questions, just begins backing out as I walk down toward the street. Instead of driving on ahead, he putters the car alongside me, talking through the window about nothing in particular. I smile. My lips are getting more exercise today than they have all year.

I wonder what my mother would’ve thought.

4

ABRAM

J
ULIETTE AND
I are all alone in my house, the same model as her two-story down the road—the unwelcoming one with the blinds always drawn. Here’s her right now: examining old photos and Christmas cards on the side of the fridge. Here’s me: looking for an orange soda in said fridge. (The Paxil dulling my brain’s receptors makes each wrong nutritional decision taste even better.) I reach past the bottled water I should be drinking and grab a can, popping the tab.

“You look alike,” Juliette says matter-of-factly, pointing to a picture of my dad and me holding up an oversized tennis trophy. It was taken in South Carolina, last summer, the last tournament we played in together, the only one Mom didn’t attend. Dad had me drive back to Virginia on my own. Only later did I find out Juliette’s mom was meeting him there after I left.

I take a long drink of soda. “Yeah … sorry…”

“For?”

“Reminding you of him.”

“Have you seen my face lately?” She doesn’t turn around to show me how much she resembles her mother, just continues staring at the image, preoccupying herself with making sure her hair is still trapped in its bun. Setting my soda on the counter, I tell her I have to go to the bathroom and walk into the nearby half bath. I turn on the fan, flush the toilet, swallow my last Paxil to avoid getting a headache, and then come back a few seconds later, a bit worried she’ll think I was taking a late-night dump.

I’m surprised to find Juliette holding my can of soda, risking the corresponding orange stains in the corners of her mouth.