The Art of Losing Yourself (24 page)

My phone vibrated against the kitchen counter.

Saved by the bell.

I walked over and grabbed it. “It’s the high school.” I swiped the screen and said hello.

“Hello, Carmen, it’s Mrs. Hershey.”

Mrs. Hershey was the school secretary—a sweet gray-haired woman who always had a smile to offer and a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses on her desk. Ben said she was retiring after the year. “Hi, Mrs. Hershey, is everything okay?”

“Well, I have Gracie here in the office. I’m afraid she’s in a little bit of trouble.”

I stuck the tip of my pinky nail between my teeth.

“I would have called Ben, but he’s in the middle of class and I knew you were done with work for the day. Plus, you are listed as Gracie’s primary contact. Do you think you can come in to speak with her guidance counselor? If you’d rather I talk to Ben, that’s fine too.”

“No, no. I can come. Do you mind telling me what she’s in trouble for?”

Natalie furrowed her brow while Mrs. Hershey explained.

When she finished, I said “thank you,” told her I’d be there in thirty minutes, and hung up the phone.

“What happened?”

“Apparently, my sister stole a goat.”

C
ARMEN

The video on the screen went black as Gracie’s guidance counselor, Mr. Vogel—a tall, stork-like man I’d made small talk with a few times over the years, mostly at Christmas parties or football concession stands—stopped the security camera footage. He sat with one ankle resting on a knee, his hands folded over his shin.

I looked from him to my sister, absolutely speechless.

When Gracie offered no explanation for the footage I’d just watched, Mr. Vogel uncrossed his leg and set both of his loafers on the floor. “The goat handler was beside himself with worry.”

Gracie rolled her eyes. “I made sure the goat was fine.”

“Gracie.”

“What? The windows were down. I gave it some water.”

I shook my head, unable to make sense of it. The whole thing was ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact, that if I hadn’t seen the footage with my own eyes, I’m not sure I would have believed it. “What would possess you to put a goat in a teacher’s car?”

“I don’t know—boredom?”

“Gracie, this is a very serious offense.” Mr. Vogel locked gazes with my sister. “The damage done to Miss Henson’s car was minimal, but that’s beside the point. School property was stolen and a teacher’s car was broken into. Those offenses together should result in a two-week out-of-school suspension.”

My eyes widened.

“And something like this would go on your transcript, along with, it would seem, myriad other infractions from your previous school.”

My eyes widened further.

Gracie seemed unfazed by the whole thing.

“But”—Mr. Vogel held up his finger—“this is your first offense here at Bay Breeze, which means there is a certain amount of freedom at my disposal,
and I happen to be a believer in second chances. Gracie, I think beneath that rough exterior is a young lady who wants to make better choices.”

Gracie crossed her arms.

Mr. Vogel typed something on his keyboard. The printer on his credenza came to life and spat out a sheet of paper. He picked it up and handed it to my sister.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“A list of extracurricular activities.”

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“I’ve spoken with your teachers. Every single one believes that you have an enormous amount of potential. All agree that an extracurricular activity would be quite beneficial, especially if boredom is the culprit.” Mr. Vogel recrossed his legs, this time clasping his hands over his knee. “Instead of the two-week suspension, I’m proposing that you pick one of these activities. You commit to whichever one you choose. As long as nothing like this happens again, we can forgo the suspension.”

I nearly melted with relief. “And it wouldn’t go on her transcript?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vogel.” I turned to my sister, urging her with my widening eyes to say “thank you” too. The offer was more than generous.

“So it’s either a two-week suspension or join one of these?”

“That’s correct.”

“I’ll take the suspension.”

I came forward in my seat. “What?”

Mr. Vogel sighed. “All right then, if that’s your decision, we will see you in December.”

“See you then.” And before I could object or even process her decision, Gracie stood up and walked out of the office.

I remained seated, stuck between two options. Apologize to Mr. Vogel on behalf of Gracie’s behavior or rush out of the office and address her behavior. I motioned toward the door apologetically.

He extended his long arm. “By all means, go after her.”

“Do you mind if I have that sheet?”

Mr. Vogel handed it to me. “If she changes her mind, please let me know.”

“I will. Thank you.”

By the time I reached the hallway, Gracie was already outside, walking down the steps toward the parking lot. I quickened my stride to close the gap she’d put between us and pushed through the front doors. “Gracie, wait a second!”

She stopped at the bottom of the cement steps and turned around.

“Have you lost your mind?”

She rattled her head a little, as if attempting to shake water out of her ear. “I’m pretty sure it’s still in there.”

“Mr. Vogel offered you an amazing deal.”

“Right, and since he offered it to me, not to you, that means I have the freedom to accept or not. I chose not.”

“A suspension will go on your transcript.”

“I don’t care about my transcript.”

“Right now, maybe not. But that doesn’t mean you won’t care about it someday.”

“Please don’t start talking about college again.”

I ran my hands back through my hair and shook my head, all the frustration and irritation I’d been stuffing away rising inside me, tangling with several other emotions that had nothing to do with my sister. “This can’t keep happening.”

“What do you mean?”

“Coming home wasted from parties? Stealing goats and putting them in teachers’ cars? Enough is enough.”

“I got drunk forever ago. You saw the footage—it was
one
goat and
one
car. Not plural. And please don’t pretend like I’m the only one who was caught doing something incriminating on video.” She raised pointed eyebrows at me.

The barb had my cheeks turning warm. The two of us had never talked about my embarrassing YouTube claim to fame. I shook my head, unwilling to get off point. “What in the world would possess you to put a goat in Miss Henson’s car?”

“I don’t like her.”

“Okay, fine. Then don’t like her. But that doesn’t negate the fact that she’s still your teacher, which means she deserves some respect.”

Gracie laughed.

“I don’t see why that’s funny.”

“Miss Henson does not deserve my respect. And if you knew what she was up to at lunch last Friday, she wouldn’t have your respect either.”

Her ominous words and the cryptic look she gave me while delivering them distracted me. “What was she doing at lunch?”

She turned to walk away, but I grabbed her elbow. “Tell me what she was doing at lunch on Friday, Gracie.”

“Coming on to your husband.”

I let go of her arm. “What?”

“I went to his class over lunch to borrow some money. He wasn’t alone. Miss Henson was inside keeping him company, and she was awfully…cozy. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her that way with him.”

Warmth drained from my face.

She turned on her heels and walked to her not-so-new car, leaving me standing at the bottom of the staircase, a seed of suspicion planted in my heart.

C
ARMEN

“I have to pee,” Gracie said.

I gritted my teeth. This was the third time she’d informed me of her situation, the first being thirty miles back on Interstate 10. I hunched over the steering wheel, gazing up at the line of towering cumulonimbus clouds and their impressive anvil-shaped crowns. We were driving parallel with the squall line, and it was closing in fast. I wanted to beat it to Tallahassee, but stopping for a bathroom break would almost certainly ensure we wouldn’t. “Can you hold it?”

“Not without getting a bladder infection.”

Gripping the wheel tighter, I flicked the blinker and took the first exit available—an unincorporated town called Potomac Springs that boasted a general store and a gas station. Unfortunately, the amenities were much farther from the interstate than I anticipated and I saw nothing resembling a town.

Gracie grumbled something at her window.

My muscles tightened. “Look, I know you’re not happy about coming, but she’s our mother. Don’t you think we should offer our support?”

“Not particularly.”

I ground my teeth. Ever since Gracie’s stubborn, obstinate refusal to take Mr. Vogel’s offer on Monday and our ensuing fight outside the school, wherein she accused a teacher of hitting on my husband, she had crawled under every last one of my nerves. For three months I’d tried making dents in her walls, and for three months I’d done nothing but fail. Apparently, I could no more pull Gracie from her sardonic, miserable moods than I could snap my finger and get myself a baby. “It’s one day. Can we at least pretend to get along for Mom’s sake?”

“Is it really for Mom’s sake?”

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but Gracie pointed to a decrepit 7-Eleven up ahead, squatting all by itself on the side of the road. It had two gas pumps and an attached outdoor rest room. The place was the perfect
setting for a horror flick. I pulled into the lot and stayed in the car with the doors locked while Gracie jogged inside, came out with a key attached to an empty milk jug, and let herself inside the rest room. I kept one eye on the clouds and scanned the radio for something better than static.

Come on, Gracie, hurry up
.

Several fat drops hit my windshield. And then the sky officially unzipped. Rain fell like sheets and pounded the roof of my car. Squinting through the downpour, I was able to make out a blur that was Gracie sprinting through the rain. As soon as she climbed inside, her body convulsed with a violent shudder. “That was disgusting.”

Lightning fissured the darkened sky overhead, followed by a blast of thunder that made us both jump. I pulled onto the road and drove toward the interstate, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

Gracie clutched the console. “Shouldn’t we pull over?”

I pressed the gas pedal. If we were going to wait out the storm, it was not going to be on the shoulder of some eerie, unpopulated road. We would get to the interstate and pull onto the shoulder and wait in the company of other vehicles. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the clouds. I leaned over the wheel and focused on my only reference point—the yellow dotted line in the center of the road—when a mass of gray darted into the path of my headlights.

Gracie shrieked.

I jerked the wheel. Slammed the brake.

The car whipped in a circle, then slid to a stop in the mud, thankfully not in the ditch.

Gracie and I stared at one another while the rain pounded the roof, our chests heaving in unison. “What was that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Some kind of animal.”

I took a deep breath. Then another. Once my heart had settled into a somewhat regular rhythm, I set my hands back on the steering wheel and pressed the gas. The car gave a funny lurch and the wheels spun. I pressed the gas harder. The car remained sedentary. With a rising sense of panic, I pushed the gas all the way to the floor. The spinning wheels spit mud into the rain. The car didn’t budge.

“We’re stuck?”

“It seems that way.” I picked up my phone to dial AAA, but it didn’t have
a signal, whether from the storm or the obscure location, I wasn’t sure. I showed it to Gracie. She pulled out her phone too. Same thing.

My panic morphed to anger. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a torrential downpour all because my sister needed to use the rest room. “I told you not to drink that Mountain Dew.”

Gracie’s black-lined, sea-green eyes went a little buggy. “Are you kidding? You’re blaming this on me?”

“If we hadn’t pulled off the interstate, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

“You’re the one who dragged me along in the first place!”

“Gracie, she’s our
mother
and she’s
trying
.”

“Give it a few days. She’ll be back to her old self in no time.”

“That’s a great attitude to have.”

“I’m being realistic.”

“No, you’re being cynical. You’re being typical, pessimistic Gracie.”

“It’s better than being a giant hypocrite.”

“Oh, and I suppose that’s me, right? I’m the giant hypocrite. Please enlighten me. How am I a giant hypocrite?”

“Everything about you is fake. You only smile when people are looking. You only touch your husband when people are looking. You go to church every Sunday morning, and then you come home and you cry in the bathroom.”

Her observation came like a sucker punch to the gut. It stole all my breath. Gracie heard me in the bathroom?

“You said The Treasure Chest was important to you, but you only care about things so long as they fit into your life. You abandoned The Treasure Chest back then just like you abandoned me back then.”

“Gracie…”

“You have no idea what it’s like living with her!” The words exploded from her mouth like a crack of thunder, puncturing the air inside the cab.

We breathed into the deafening silence while fog crawled up the windows.

My sister broke eye contact first. She turned away from me, but not before I caught her swiping discreetly at her eye.

“Gracie, I lived with her for twelve years.”

“It wasn’t the same. You were never alone with her. You had your dad to look after you. I had nobody. I was a burden to Mom. An inconvenience to my father. And absolutely nothing to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“You are such a liar.” Gracie shook her head. “And what makes it all worse, is that you
knew
. You knew I was being raised by an alcoholic mother, but you did nothing.”

Her accusations were a paper shredder, slivering me into thin strips of guilt. I could have argued. I could have stated my case—that I thought she was sober, or at least relatively close to the wagon. But Gracie was right. Deep down, I’d known. It was simply more comfortable playing the fool. Dad decided he’d had enough when I was in seventh grade—the year before Gracie was born—and I was still so relieved to be far away from Mom, the dysfunction that marked our life and the exhausting work of trying to hide it, that I barely gave my sister a backward glance. I had no problem sacrificing my relationship with a baby for the sake of my newfound freedom. I condemned a little girl to a life I was desperate to escape, all so I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.

Gracie reached for the door handle, like she couldn’t stand being in the same car with me for one more second, then stepped out into the downpour.

I scrambled after her, the rain falling in such sheets I was soaked before I was all the way out. Mud slopped at my shoes like suction cups. I had to yell to be heard. “Come on, Gracie, get back in the car!”

She leaned against the hood with crossed arms. “No.”

“I’m sorry, all right?”

“Do you think I want your lame apology? It means nothing.”

I squinted through the cold downpour. Another bolt of lightning lit up the sky from one end to the other. “You’re right. My sorry can’t undo what’s been done. I can’t fix that hurt or make up for my cowardly behavior. But I’m trying
now
. I want to be here for you
now
.” Raindrops dripped off my eyelashes and into my mouth. I blinked away the wet and stepped closer. “But I can’t be here if you keep freezing me out at every turn.”

She looked up from her crossed arms, her black hair plastered to the sides of her face, her eyeliner smearing black down her cheeks.

“I want to be the sister I should have been from the beginning, but I can’t be unless you let me in a little.” The heavy rain began to thin. The worst of the squall passed. I stared at Gracie and waited for her to decide. I couldn’t do it for her. If I’d learned one thing over the past three months, it was that I couldn’t
help someone who didn’t want the help. I couldn’t force her to trust me. This was her choice.

She worried her lip.

The rain turned into a sprinkle.

“Do you have any cardboard?” she finally asked.

“What?”

“For the wheels. If we have something to wedge underneath them, maybe we can get ourselves unstuck.”

It wasn’t a clear answer, but it was a start.

I popped open the trunk and pulled out the box we’d been using to cart various items in and out of the motel. Together, we broke it open, tore it in half, and wedged one large square of cardboard beneath each front wheel. Gracie got behind the steering wheel while I stood behind the bumper and prepared to heave with all my might. She eased onto the gas and I pushed with every ounce of strength I had. She gunned the gas a little harder. The car shifted forward. The front tires caught on the cardboard. The back wheels kicked up a fountain of mud. And somehow, someway, the car lurched onto the road.

For a moment I stood there, staring.

Oh my goodness, we did it. We got the car unstuck
.

Gracie climbed out, looking every bit as shocked as I did. We gaped at one another, both of us resembling drowned rats, and a sound came out of Gracie I’d never heard before. Laughter. Not sarcastic or cruel, but pure, delighted laughter. When I looked down at myself, I couldn’t help but join in. I was splattered with mud from head to toe. We laughed and we laughed, so hard that soon we were doubled over with tears.

By the time we laid towels over the seats and were driving again, the laughter was long gone. But the feeling it left behind? That stayed. I merged onto the highway and snuck a sideways peek at my sister. “I’ve had six miscarriages.”

Her head whipped around. So quick it seemed more reflex than willful choice.

“That’s why I cry sometimes. In the bathroom.”

Gracie gave me the smallest, subtlest of nods. And we were on our way.