The Art of Losing Yourself (17 page)

Earl took the first trick and led the next with a five of diamonds.

“I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve seen the place,” Ingrid said. “I hate that I can’t seem to keep track of the time anymore.”

Dorothy took the second trick, then threw out an ace. “That’s what calendars are for.”

Earl furrowed his brow—not at Dorothy’s words, but at her lead.

“I asked Nurse Ray the date the other day and she told me September 14. Mid-September? I have no idea how it got to be mid-September. The whole thing gave me a nightmare. It was the strangest nightmare too. I was on the beach searching for seashells. Nurse Ray was there and she kept yelling at me to put the shells down and get out in the water for a swim. Then all of a sudden a riptide was dragging me away, and no matter how hard I swam, I couldn’t get back to the shore. There were sharks and everything.” Ingrid shuddered. “I’ve never been so happy to wake up in all my life.”

I laid a ten and jiggled my leg, searching for a way to get the conversation back on track.

“You know,” Earl quipped, “you’ll never escape a riptide by fighting against the current. I learned about it on the Travel Channel. Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But many people have drowned fighting the current.”

“You’re supposed to swim parallel with the shore,” Ingrid said.

Earl smiled. “Precisely.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dorothy said dryly, “the next time I take a dip in the ocean.”

“So, Christmas!” Never mind subtlety. It was getting me nowhere. I beamed at my aunt. “You ready to celebrate out at The Treasure Chest this year?”

“Am I ready?” She pressed her bony hand against her sternum, tears welling in her eyes. “That would be the best Christmas present I could ask for. I’d die a happy woman.”

Some tears might have welled in mine too.

“You’re not dying anytime soon,” Dorothy said. “Now play a card.”

Ingrid tossed out an off-suit heart.

“No diamonds?” Earl asked.

“No diamonds,” she replied.

Dorothy scooped in the cards and laid the ace of hearts.

Earl slapped the table. “I knew it, you’re shooting the moon!”

She smirked, then convulsed with another round of hacking coughs.

When the worst of it passed, Ingrid sighed. It was as if my news had lit her
up from the inside out. I could almost see the joy shining from her pores. “You should have seen the Christmas parties Gerald and I used to throw back in the day. The whole family would come—Patrick and his wife and their two kids, Genevieve and little Beau. Henry and Evelyn and Carmen. Gerald’s two sisters and their families, not to mention the motel guests. We’d put up a giant tree and have tinsel everywhere! I’d even make homemade baklava, one of the only Greek foods my picky Scot of a husband enjoyed.”

A whole slew of memories rose up in the wake of her reminiscing, just like they did the last time. Only this time, I couldn’t have wiped the smile from my face if I’d tried.

“That sounds like a slice of heaven, Ingrid,” Earl said. “The best kind of Christmas there could be.”

“You should come!”

Ingrid’s invitation ripped me from my reveries. It was going to be enough work taking her out for the day. I couldn’t imagine bringing Earl too, especially with his heart condition.

“You and Dorothy, both.” Ingrid reached across the table and squeezed Earl’s hand. “Maybe Alice can even join us.”

Oh, dear.

Now Earl’s pores shone with joy too. “What do you say, Dorth?”

“I’m not going to any motel on Christmas. If I had my say, I’d go nowhere on Christmas.” Dorothy examined her cards, then laid the queen of hearts. “And here my family’s already prattling on about two separate parties! As if one isn’t torture enough.”

“Torture?” Ingrid waved her finger at Dorothy, like a mother reprimanding a sullen child. “Christmas is the best holiday of the year.”

“Christmas is for the kids.” She stopped short of saying bah humbug.

“Christmas is about the Christ, which makes it for everyone,” Ingrid said.

“Don’t start talking religion at me.”

Ingrid opened her mouth to say more, but Earl tapped the table. A timely distraction. “I’d be honored to join you for Christmas, Ingrid. Absolutely honored.”

So, Earl was in. What was one more, really? Nobody should be alone for Christmas, especially not somebody as jolly as St. Nick himself.

I looked around the table. We had reached the final trick of the game.
Each of us held one last card. Dorothy had been leading the entire time. If she won, she would have shot the moon, landing the rest of us with twenty-six points. She stared at Earl, then laid down the jack of clubs. I knew exactly what Earl had left. I was the one who had slid it to him in the beginning of the game, after all. But his face revealed nothing. Ingrid laid a seven. I laid a diamond. Earl paused, for dramatic effect, then with a hoot, he laid the queen.

“The Black Maria foils your plans, Dorth!” He scooped up the trick, chuckling away, happily accepting his thirteen points for the sake of our zero.

G
RACIE

Ever since my mother told Carmen she was checking herself into rehab, a number with an 850 area code lit up my phone screen every night at 6:30 p.m. And Carmen had turned into a parrot.
Squawk! Have you talked to Mom yet? Squawk! You should really talk to Mom
. It took everything in me not to stuff a cracker in her mouth and tell her to shut it. I leaned against the headboard of my bed for two more rings before swiping the screen and saying hello.

“Gracie?” Her voice came out in a gush of shock and relief.

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m so glad you answered.” She let out a shaky breath, as if waiting for me to fill the silence. I had nothing to say. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Carmen said you’re enrolled at Ben’s school?”

Yep
.

“Are you enjoying your new classes?”

“Sure.”

“Have you made any new friends?”

“Not really.”

“Are you behaving yourself for Carmen and Ben?”

“I have to go.”

“Gracie, wait…”

I stared at that canvas with the Bible verse about Jesus making all things new while she sniffled on the other end. I didn’t like when my mother cried. Her tears were manipulative and weak. I wanted to tell her to suck it up. She wasn’t a victim. And I was all out of sympathy.

“I—I love you. You know that, right?”

“Sure, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.” I dropped my phone into my lap and rested my head against the wall as it muffled Ben and Carmen’s voices in the other room. The sound reminded me of Charlie Brown’s teacher—“waa-waa-waa.” I
didn’t pay much attention until the words
The Treasure Chest
broke through the gibberish.

I got up on my knees and pressed my ear against the wall.

“You go back on Monday,” Ben said.

“I know.”

“How are you going to have time to do both?”

“I’m done every day at ten. I can go to The Chest after I get off work.”

During the day. While I was at school.

I sank down onto the mattress and picked up the postcard on my nightstand. Once again, Carmen was leaving me out of her plans. I didn’t know why it surprised me.

My hand throbbed. I had spent the entire afternoon and evening filling out job applications. I started at the end of Dock Street at the Hot Dog Hut, a restaurant with a giant shark head protruding over the door like an awning. Then I made my way down the street and around the town square, careful not to miss any possible places of employment. I doubted Carmen would let me drop out of school to work at The Treasure Chest with her during the day, which basically meant I was out of a job.

I stood in front of the last place along the square, the restaurant I’d been intentionally avoiding all night: The Barbeque Pit. Country twang escaped from the door every time another football player walked inside. As the unofficial gathering spot for Ben’s football team, it wasn’t exactly my first pick. But since it was one of Bay Breeze’s busiest restaurants, I’d be dumb to pass it up.

Go in, fill out an application, and reward yourself with a bag of Funyuns
.

By the time I got home, Carmen would be asleep and Ben would be in the garage out back, which would leave me with the TV all to myself. I could watch reruns of old-school sitcoms.
The Cosby Show
played four times in a row starting at eleven on TBS.

Shaking out the cramps in my hand, I walked inside to the tangy smell of barbeque and the twangy voice of some dude singing about his sexy farmer’s tan. Apparently, our ideas of sexy were vastly different.

Most of the booths were lined with kids my age—lots of big, bulky boys and other less bulky boys I vaguely recognized from school. Elias sat at one,
spinning quarters on the table with a few others. As if sensing my presence, his eyes lifted from the spinning quarters and met mine. I looked away, made a beeline for the counter, and asked the woman behind it for an application. She handed one over and I sat on one of the barstools and began filling in the boxes with my back to the majority of my peers. My hair blocked the rest.

“Looking for a job?”

I stopped my pen scratching and swiveled around. It wasn’t Elias. It was the blond, lanky boy from Debate and Ethics. His name was Parker. And while I sometimes got the impression that he liked hearing himself talk, I had to admit that he was impressively smart. Elias, I could beat in a debate. Parker and I pretty much went head to head. I could never tell if I impressed him or irritated him. Probably both.

“It’s Gracie, right?”

Whatever
. Parker knew my name.

He sat in the stool beside me. “Can I ask you a question?”

“It’s a free country.”

He scooted his stool closer to mine. “Why don’t I ever see you outside of school?”

“You’re seeing me now.”

“You know what I mean.”

I wondered how I should fill in the boxes of availability. Whatever I checked meant time away from helping Carmen at The Treasure Chest. While I wish I could have said
Forget you, you’re on your own now
, I couldn’t. I liked being there. I liked fixing the place up. Even if it was with my sister. I decided to leave them all blank and see what the manager came up with—if he or she even offered me the job. “Probably because I don’t hang out where you hang out.”

“That’s too bad.”

The lady who gave me the application rang up a harassed-looking mother with four kids, then raised her eyebrows at whomever stood next in line.

“Can I get a refill, please?”

I swiveled my stool around in the opposite direction. Elias tipped his chin at me, then shifted his attention to Parker.

“Hey, Eli,” Parker said. “I was just about to invite Gracie to a party I’m having on Saturday night. My parents are out of town. You should come too.”
He handed me an actual business card, on the back of which was scrawled his name, number, and address. “Starts at seven.” And with that, he left—back to whichever table he came from.

I turned the card over. It belonged to his father, who, according to the card, had his own law firm. I knew because it was called Zkotsky & Schmidt Legal Office, and Reyas was always calling Parker Mr. Zkotsky.

The waitress set Elias’s freshly topped drink on the counter.

“You gonna go?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“It’s not really my scene.” He took a pull of Coca-Cola from his straw, then scratched his earlobe. “In the spirit of speaking truth?”

I folded my arms on top of my application. This, I had to hear.

“I’d stay clear of Parker. He’s kind of a jerk.”

“Duly noted.”

He glanced at the sheet of paper beneath my elbows and tapped the counter. “I hope you get the job.” With a wink, he picked up his glass and returned to his booth.

I finished the application, handed it over, and made a fast exit, stopping at a gas station and grabbing a bag of Funyuns on the way home. I reread the address on the back of the business card. I’d done enough wandering around Bay Breeze to know that the house was in one of the wealthier neighborhoods. No surprise, if Parker’s dad was a hotshot lawyer. I slid the card into my back pocket and cut across Ben and Carmen’s front lawn, encouraged by the darkened windows.

When I stepped inside, though, Ben sat up from the couch, his hair springing from the back of his head. The TV cast a glow into the room. On the screen, a white-and-red team played a purple-and-gold team. Thursday Night Football.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Did you find a job?”

I shrugged. If I didn’t, nobody could say it was for lack of effort.

“The game’s a blowout.” He nodded toward the football players. “TV’s yours if you want it.”

“It’s fine.”

Ben ran his hand down the back of his hair. “I talked to Reyas in the teacher’s lounge today.”

My shoulders tensed. An ingrained reaction. One of my guardians mentioned talking to one of my teachers and my hackles were going to go up. This time, however, I was pretty sure I knew what Reyas talked to Ben about. Because Reyas herself cornered me after class, giving me no choice but to listen as she turned into a living, breathing billboard for the debate team.

“She says you’re one heck of a debater.”

I kicked off my boots. I wasn’t typically one for class participation, but somehow Reyas made keeping quiet a virtual impossibility. Plus, there were Parker and Elias to argue with.

“Do you think you’ll go out for the team?” he asked.

“I’m not much of a joiner.”

“Well, maybe you should start. Reyas doesn’t go into recruiting mode unless she’s highly impressed with whoever she’s recruiting.”

I lifted my shoulder like it was no big deal, but Ben’s words expanded like this strange pocket of warmth in the center of my chest. Other than Ingrid and her seashells, nobody had recruited me for anything.