How to Save a Life Read online

  “Sniffer of leather. Eater of the worst kind of junk food. Lover of tabloid magazines.”

  “She’s our age, right? And she’s only staying there a little while. You can handle it.”

  “Seriously, Dylan, she’s weird.” I drop a slice of beef into my broth; now I’m on a roll. “Not much going on upstairs. Her big ambition was to go to Pancake Universe.”

  Dylan pushes his lower lip out and nods. “Uh-huh. And how long have you known her? Like, a total of five waking hours or something?”

  His tone has totally changed. So I change mine, too. “Are you saying I don’t have the right to judge?”

  “No. And even if I were saying that, I know it wouldn’t stop you. I’m just saying maybe you should think about how she feels. She’s probably scared as hell. She probably needs a friend. Not everyone was born independent like you.”

  Well. What am I supposed to say to that?

  He picks up his bowl and drinks, then sets it down. “Wow. Have I rendered you speechless?”

  “Ha,” I say weakly, and it’s all I’ve got. So I’m independent. The way my dad raised me to be. No daughter of his would ever be stuck on the side of the road in the dark flagging down potential rapists to help with a flat. He opened my first checking account with me when I was twelve and taught me how to make a budget and balance my account using a spreadsheet. He taught me not only how to drive but how to drive in snow, on ice, off road, in a flood. I know how to change my oil and brake pads; I understand the wonders of compounding interest; I’m in charge of keeping the smoke alarms and heating filters fresh in our house; I can load and clean guns and shoot them if I have to; and I know how to drop a man with an elbow strike to the face.

  Okay, I also know that’s not what Dylan means. He’s talking about emotional independence. It’s not like I chose it. I want to say, When someone you love and depend on emotionally dies, get back to me.

  New subject needed. Maybe telling him about my encounter with Ravi, a.k.a. R.J. Desai, loss control associate, will get him interested in my life again.

  “Do you remember a guy from—”

  “Jill, I gotta get back to school.” He puts money on the table and stands. Just enough to pay for his lunch and tip. I get up, too, and immediately realize I’ve left my messenger bag in my locker. Fantastic.

  “Can I borrow, like… seven dollars?” Miss Independent, that’s me.

  Dylan is fixing his jeans so that they rest exactly right on his hips. “What if I don’t have it? What are you going to do?”

  “Do you have it?”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Do you?”

  He takes his money from the table and goes up to the register to pay both our checks with his debit card. Five minutes ago, he was one of the family. Now we’re… the way we are. I stand by the door trying to look as if it doesn’t bother me. When he comes back, he says, “You need a ride back to school, too.”

  “No I don’t,” I say instantly, and just as instantly regret it. Why can’t I simply say yes to him? What am I proving, except that I still don’t know how to concede that, like anyone else, I don’t want to be spinning off into the universe all alone? That sometimes I’m wrong, that sometimes I screw up, that sometimes I require mercy. From friends. From my mom, my dad. That right now I want Dylan’s most of all. Even with all of these brilliant, self-aware insights, I push open the door of the restaurant and say, “I don’t need anything.”

  Mandy

  It’s not my fault about the peanut butter. Robin wants me to eat things like peanut butter on apple slices for a snack, instead of cupcakes or hot chocolate. Their peanut butter isn’t even that good; they get it from the health food store, and if you leave it out too long, it gets oily.

  Jill’s standing between me and the TV. “Why’d you stick the empty jar back in the fridge? Put it on the counter so we know we’re out. Or write it on the list by the phone.”

  I’ve been here only two days. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know where they keep the grocery list. At Kent’s we didn’t even have a list. If there wasn’t food, he yelled about it and my mother went to the store.

  “I think there’s enough, if you scrape the sides, to put on a cracker?” I try to see in the space between her arm and body what’s happening on the talk show that just started.

  “No, there isn’t.” She walks over to the couch where I’m stretched out with my feet up, and holds the jar in front of my face with the lid off to show me. The smell makes me hungry again. “Where’s my mom?”

  “She had a meeting. She said to tell you she left a note in your room.”

  Still holding the peanut butter jar, Jill stomps upstairs. This morning after Jill left for school, Robin sat by me on the couch and said, “About Jill…”

  I propped myself up and paid attention.

  “You have to understand,” Robin said, “that I sort of dropped this on her out of the blue. So I can’t totally blame her for not knowing how to handle it. I’d hoped she’d come around by now.” She said to give her time, that Jill’s actually a nice, caring person who hides it well. I said, “How much time?”

  Robin smiled and then stopped smiling and said that she wished she knew, that she’d been waiting a long time herself for Jill to come back.

  On Monday night, I was up in my room and in bed before Jill got home from work, and I didn’t wake up until after she was gone in the morning, but there were magazines for me on the kitchen table. From her. So I had something to read at breakfast while Robin read her paper. That was nice. Then yesterday was the doctor, and when Jill got home from school and found out everything about the baby really being a girl and not being due for seven more weeks, she didn’t hide that she was mad about that, and hasn’t said very much to me since.

  It doesn’t look like that’s going to change today.

  The guest on the talk show is a bra expert, and women from the audience come down and get measured and everyone needs a bigger cup size than they thought and I don’t know why, but they don’t seem happy about it. I’ve always had the right size. In fifth grade, I got home from school one afternoon and I’d taken off my sweater because it was late spring and I wanted to feel the air on my arms. My mother saw me in my T-shirt and pulled me into my room—actually it was half my room and half Gary’s office—and lifted my shirt. We went straight out to get me fitted. “Why didn’t you say something, Amanda?” she asked me on the way to the store. “I hope you haven’t been running around like that in front of Gary.” Gary was her boyfriend that year. What I remember about him is a necklace with a real gold nugget on the chain, and the smell of Chinese tea. He drank it all the time because the antioxidants balanced out his smoking, he said.

  After we got the bra, my mother took me out for ice cream. She made me order a triple-scoop sundae with everything on it, even though I wasn’t hungry, and she got a diet pop for herself. “Eat up, Mandy, while you can,” she said, her eyes fixed on my ice cream, looking lonely for it. I slid it across to her and offered my spoon. She pulled back, like it was poison, and shook her head. “You know what that will do to my hips. And to yours, pretty soon. You’ll see.” She said from then on I had to watch my weight. And I couldn’t be friends with boys. And I should never come out of my room less than fully dressed. And I had to use deodorant and wash my hair every day and not sit cross-legged or run around the schoolyard. After that she did take my spoon and a big bite of ice cream, hot fudge, chopped nuts. “I’m going to tell you what my mother told me,” she said, gripping the spoon like she wasn’t going to give it back. “Your childhood is over.”

  I was just only eleven.

  When a commercial comes on, I get off the couch and stretch my back. “Jill?” I call toward the stairs. There’s no answer. At the bottom of the stairs I try again. “Jill?” She’s ignoring me. Getting up the stairs isn’t so hard, but by the time I get to the closed door of her room, I have to catch my breath for a few seconds.

  There’s
music playing and, underneath the music, something else.

  “Are you crying?” I ask through the door.

  She doesn’t answer, so I turn the knob and push the door open. Jill is sitting on the floor, in the corner between the bed and the closet, her back to the wall and her head down on her knees. Fingers in her hair. Every couple of seconds, she clenches them.

  It’s sad, how alone she looks.

  She lifts her head, and there’s mascara on her cheeks. “Get out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I said get out.”

  It’s the first time I’ve been all the way in her room. Her desk is a mess of homework and food plates and her laptop computer. The empty jar of peanut butter sits next to it.

  “Is there a reason you’re not getting out?” she asks.

  “I was wondering if you had some paper to write on.”

  She stares at me a second, hard, then points to a desk drawer. I take out three sheets of beige stationery.

  “And an envelope?”

  “Same. Underneath.”

  I dig through a little more and find a matching envelope.

  “And a stamp?”

  “Seriously?” Jill sniffs and wipes her nose on one of the balled-up tissues next to her. “Try the kitchen. Cigar box by the phone. Near the grocery list. And put peanut butter on it.” She licks her fingers and runs them under her eyes to clean off the mascara, but there are a few black streaks left.

  In the back of the drawer is the edge of a cardboard picture frame. Opening the drawer a little more, I see it’s a close-up picture of Robin and a man with a gray beard and big stomach. A middle-aged Santa of a man. There’s a girl in the picture, too, maybe twelve years old with dark blonde hair and braces. It’s Jill; I recognize her greenish-brown eyes. “Is this your dad?” I ask, holding the picture up.

  She nods.

  “Why do you keep it in the drawer?”

  “Because it’s private.” She stands and takes the picture out of my hand, pressing it to her chest. “Do you need anything else? A fountain pen? A thesaurus? A map to the mailbox? If not, can you please leave me alone?”

  “Sure.” I force myself to smile, trying to make friends, trying to give her time. “I like your hair color in that picture. Maybe you should go back to it.”

  She holds the picture out to look at it. “Thanks for the tip, Mandy.”

  “Sure.”

  Dear Alex,

  It was so nice to meet you on the train. How was your sister’s wedding? I’m sure it was beautiful. I love weddings. There’s nothing more special than seeing two people pledge their love to each other for life. I know you said you’re not married yet because you have to meet the right girl. Give it time and be open to the unexpected.

  I didn’t tell you this before because it’s hard for me to talk about, but I’m not keeping this baby. The truth of the matter is that the baby’s father was killed in the line of duty. I can’t face raising a baby without him and the only fair thing is to give us both a fresh start. So in a couple of months I won’t be pregnant anymore, and I won’t be a mother, and I’ll be looking for a new beginning. My life is an empty horizon.

  I just wanted to tell you.

  You can write to me at this address for now.

  Sincerely,

  Mandy Madison (from the train)

  It takes all three sheets of stationery to get the letter right, with perfect handwriting. Before Robin, I never knew how to write a good letter. I wanted her to think I was smart, or at least not stupid, so I asked at the library for a book to help me, and the lady found me more than one. The books were old and mostly about business letters, but every time I did an e-mail to Robin, I had the books open, and the dictionary, and I would copy phrases and words from the sample letters in the books. There were different categories, like “letter of thanks” and “friendly letter” and “letter of apology.” One thing I learned was that in a friendly letter you should refer to something that was mentioned last time you wrote or talked. That’s why I said the thing about weddings, even though I’ve never been to one. But I’ve seen them on TV and I do love them.

  I bet Alex hasn’t gotten a handwritten letter in a long time. Me either. I used to get them from my grandmother a few times a year before she died, but that’s it. The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal letter every day. Even an e-mail. I never thought about that until I was getting them almost every day from Robin. I never had a connection like that to anyone, where every day you think about what you’ll tell them and you wonder what they’re doing, and you know they’re wondering what you’re doing. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be between people. That’s what I want for my baby. That’s what I want for me.

  Jill

  It’s crazy busy at Margins; there’s a line at the café and cash wrap all night. I like it this way. Annalee has us tuned like a well-oiled machine: attentive but efficient, throwing in a book recommendation here and there when there aren’t too many people waiting, and offering but not pushing the frequent-buyers club. It’s one of those nights when every customer goes away happy with blue plastic bags full of books and CDs and random crap from the impulse-buy section—overpriced chocolate, fancy bookmarks, mugs, journals.

  For nearly three entire hours, I don’t think about Mandy. When things finally slow down a bit and I do remember her, the word that won’t leave me is sister. Mandy’s baby will be my sister. The discovery that the baby is a she and not a he has softened me up a tiny bit. I know that logically this shouldn’t change anything in terms of how I feel about the situation, and I definitely think Mandy’s full of shit about not knowing her real due date, but what girl doesn’t want a little sister? It’s a chance to be worshipped and adored, to buy miniature pink hoodies and spiffy toddler tights, to instruct a clean-slate brain on How to Be Awesome and Not Lame. By the time I’m my mom’s age, a seventeen-year gap won’t be a big deal, and it could be, I don’t know, good. To have someone built into your life like that, permanently, even if you didn’t always get along. Family.

  And if something happens to my mom, the way it did to my dad, I won’t be all alone.

  I pull myself back from this thought and work on rekindling my annoyance at Mandy, which is a much easier and more pleasant mental space to dwell in. If my sister turns out to be exactly like Mandy, forget it. Based on what I learned in psychology class, it could go either way. Nature, nurture, a mash-up of both… it’s all a mystery no one truly understands.

  First we have to get through the next seven weeks.

  Half an hour before closing, the lines finally dwindle, and Annalee sends everyone but the closers home. That leaves her and me and Ron. I’m straightening up my register area and restocking bags when I feel eyes on me. Annalee asks, “Can I help you?” in a super-friendly, flirty way, and I know it’s Dylan. I just know. There’s no one else whose presence I can feel that way, down into my bones. I purposely keep my head down a few extra seconds so that he can soak up this view of me in my element and have time to forgive me for being a bitch yesterday.

  “Um. I’m here to see Jill?”

  My head jerks up. It’s not Dylan. It’s R.J. Or Ravi. With a yellowish bruise on his jaw.

  “Why were you staring at me like that?” I blurt.

  “Like what?”

  Now that we’re in normal light, I can see the resemblance between the current R.J. and Ravi circa my sophomore year. His face has thinned out, the glasses are gone, and the hair is under control. But it’s him.

  “Never mind. This is R.J. Desai,” I say to Annalee. “Loss prevention associate.” To him, “This is my manager, Annalee Calonita. But you probably know that, since you’ve been spying on the store.”

  They shake hands. “Are you new?” Annalee asks. “What happened to that Doug Richards guy?”

  “Doug Richmond. He’s… no longer with us.”

  “He died?”

  “No no no. He’s pursuing other opportunities.
”

  She laughs. “You don’t have to use corporate-speak here. He was canned, I get it. So what’s up?”

  While testing the pens in my pen cup and tossing the duds, I build my defense in case he’s here in a preemptive strike to get me into trouble for closing early.

  “I need to speak with Jill if you can spare her for about five minutes.”

  He’s pulling down on his suit jacket with his fingertips. That’s when I realize he’s nervous—not here to get me in trouble but to beg me, the way he did when he was chasing down my car, not to get him in trouble.

  “Go ahead.” Even though Annalee sounds cheery, I can tell she’s wondering why someone from Corporate would want to talk to me and not her.

  R.J. and I wend our way through the store toward Philosophy and Religion. It’s in a quiet corner, a good place to talk. Normally I’d deeply savor such a moment as this: me, upper hand all the way, with something another person wants that I can choose to bestow or withhold. Except I’m not feeling the power. What I’m feeling is flustered that I could have been certain those were Dylan’s eyes on me. It’s so unnerving that I actually stumble on a carpet seam and have to right myself in a graceless move that involves clutching at a shelf and knocking over a paper coffee cup someone has left behind. It’s half full of cold coffee, which splashes onto my hand. I curse.

  R.J. whips a handkerchief from his chest pocket and starts dabbing at my hand. “Here.”

  “Can you just… not.” I grab the hankie from him and use it to mop up the coffee before it can ruin half a shelf of books. “Help me with these.”

  He picks up five books with one hand and rescues two with the other. I finish cleaning the shelf and myself, rearrange the books, and give the now brown and wet hankie back to R.J., asking, “Why’d you change your name?”

  “So you do remember.”

  “Not really.” I crumple the empty coffee cup in my hand. “I had to look in my yearbook. How’s your ‘journey into the future’ going?”