The One That I Want Page 4

  “You okay?”

  I look down to see Tyler peering up at me, his eyes half-open from the disturbance.

  I exhale through my mouth. “I’m fine. Just upset over a fight with Darcy.”

  “What happened?” He sighs, his words slow with sleep.

  I start to reply, but the open window has shut: he’s already gone, slipping back in his dream world, slipping out of consciousness entirely.

  I pop three Aleve, yank my dress over my head, and fall into bed. The air conditioner whirls and hums as I try to temper my anger with Darcy and her ever-present immaturity. This begrudging, this I’m-so-stinking-pissed feeling is foreign, unfamiliar, and I want to let it go, but it’s stuck there, taffy in my bloodstream, emotional static cling. I consider calling Susie but know she has her own burdens to bear, and Luanne is working the night shift. Just get over it, Tilly. You know she was just upset because it’s Mom’s birthday. I run through a list of my prior grievances with her: how many times have I let her off the hook for bad behavior? I didn’t even realize I kept a list, but now, with my annoyance primed and ripe, the list, I conclude, is long.

  My leg twitches restlessly, and I throw a pillow over my head, but shut-eye eludes me. I mull my prom to-dos and mentally flip through my list of baby names, but still, sleep won’t come. That goddamn list of Ways Darcy Pisses Me Off is caught on replay, so I right myself, slide my worn plaid slippers over my feet, and pad to my bureau, crouching by the bottom drawer. It creaks when I wrestle it open. Over the years, the stacks of photos have toppled over into each other, so while they were once aligned precisely—delineated by high school, by pre–Mom’s death, by our wedding—now, they’re one amalgamation, the proof of the life I have lived.

  I have taken the bulk of these pictures. Not all, but most. I discovered photography at twelve, at sleepaway camp, when we were mandated to attend all of the afternoon activities whether they interested us or not. And photography was certainly a not for me—not for Silly Tilly, that girl I haven’t thought of in years, who was better primed to flirt with boys in the dining hall or cannon-ball into the pool on the days when the temperature nearly melted us from the inside out.

  Our bunk trudged to the photo hut and the counselor gave each of us our own camera and told us to explore the grounds, snapping at whatever grabbed our attention. We wandered into the woods, and I just snapped and snapped because I was really thinking about kissing Andy Mosely later after canteen and how to avoid the horror stories I’d heard about locking our braces. But then the instructor asked us to unspool our film, and in the near blackness of the camp’s darkroom, he demonstrated how we were able to turn those passing glimmers of moments into something concrete, something that would mark that second in time forever. And I was captivated—Andy Mosely and his braces flew right out of my brain. And soon, while my friends were working on their canoeing skills or lanyarding bracelets for the bunk, I could be found in that semidarkness, turning a blank paper into a piece of history.

  Tonight, I scour the mess of photos, running my fingers over the chronology of my life, until I find the one I’m after.

  It’s a black-and-white shot. I’d set the timer on the tripod and rushed back to our front porch, throwing myself next to Luanne and plastering a panicked smile across my face just before the click of the camera sounded. My father’s arm is casually thrown across my mother’s shoulders, and we, the trio of sisters, are sitting on the steps at their feet, though my body is somewhat disjointed from my rush to make it in time. The paint is slightly cracked on the frame of the porch, and an American flag falls limp in the background, waiting for a breeze to blow it to attention. But our cheeks are all flushed, and our eyes are all glowing, and together, the five of us, we are a family.

  I feel the pinch of tears, and slowly one, then two, then three roll down my cheeks, where they nosedive onto the carpet. It was the last summer before my mother was diagnosed, before everything changed, before I started hoping that someone could freeze time and point us in a different direction. Before Darcy hardened herself, before we talked around each other, before I ever even thought to make a list of the times that I’d had to save her.

  I rise gingerly to go back to bed, still clutching the photo and running my fingers over my father’s face, marveling at how much he’s aged, how poorly he’s withstood the damage that time can bring. And then I feel it again—there’s no mistaking it now, a cramp in my toe, then my leg, then upward as it whooshes through my heart and then my head, and I can’t free my mind from Ashley Simmons’ face and her knowing smirk and the sensation of her fingers interlocked with mine. And then, I am falling, falling, falling, unable to fight against the paralyzing pull of gravity. I hear a disconcerting crash, and then, it all goes black.

  My dad has sidled up to the bar at Mickey Mantle’s, the sports bar off of Route 17, nestled in a strip mall between Applebee’s and a nail salon. I watch him from a corner, the air bursting with wafts of smoke from the patrons, who suck in their cigarettes, their lips pursed in concise cylinders. Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” plays on the jukebox from the game room, and if I listen closely, I can hear the smack of two pool balls colliding.

  The black-leather-topped stools on either side of my father are empty, though a huddle of men are perched at the end of the countertop, their eyes glazed over as they nurse their longneck beers and stare at the extra-innings Angels-Cubs game that’s coming in via satellite from L.A.

  No one notices me, even though I’m the only woman in the vicinity barring Cindy Heller, who was three years ahead of me in high school and looks about two decades older. She got pregnant straight out of her senior year and now has three kids with two different dads, neither of whom have stuck around long enough for her to pin them down for child support. Her frown lines twitch as she makes her rounds with overflowing drinks, the occasional order of nachos.

  My dad raises his hand to signal for the bartender, and I see two shot glasses delivered in front of him. I scream for him when he reaches for one glass, then the other, and pours them down his throat as if they were water, as if they were air, as if he hasn’t been sober for nearly a decade, and as if the very poison he just knocked back hasn’t nearly killed him many times over. I scream again, but no one turns to look at me, no one even seems to hear. I try to move toward him, to rip those shot glasses straight from his hands, toss them on the floor where they’ll shatter into tiny, penetrating shards, and haul him the hell out of here. But as I implore my brain to lift my legs, to thrust forward, I discover that I’m weighted down, paralyzed, and I can scream and scream and scream, and try to run and run and run, but I am both silent and frozen, invisible and helpless all at once.

  My father throws one final shot down his throat and then stands, grabbing hold of the mahogany bar to steady himself, and as the crowd in the corner salutes a run scored, my dad bobs and weaves himself to the exit. Before he wanders out into the warm starry night, he plunges his hand into his side pocket and pulls out his keys, triumphant, like a fisherman with his catch. I try to shout above the din, above the ruckus, For the love of God, stop, Dad, stop, but still, I am voiceless, so all I can do is watch my father stumble out of the bar and into the parking lot, where for a sliver of time until the door slams shut, I hope that he’ll be alright, even though I know, as well as I’ve ever known anything in my life, that nothing will be alright about this at all.

  four

  “Till, Tilly, are you okay?” Someone is gently slapping my cheek, and I squint my eyes open to find Tyler hovering above. “Till, Jesus, are you okay?”

  “Urf,” I say. My body aches, muscles sore and bent in ways they didn’t ask to be, and I slowly cast about for my bearings. I’m on the floor by the bureau, a lamp broken to my left. I run my fingers over my face and feel the pockmarks from a night spent pressed into the carpet.

  Tyler slides his hands under my armpits and lifts me, effortlessly, to the bed. I want to stay like this forever, but he releases me agai
nst the pillows.

  “Jesus, what happened? I just came in with your coffee.” He pauses and hands me a mug by the nightstand. “And found you like this.”

  “I … I don’t know,” I say. “I had the weirdest dream. About my dad.”

  “Lie down.” He cuts me off. “I’ll call Luanne.”

  “Lulu’s a delivery nurse. She’s not exactly the cavalry,” I say, sucking down a long, necessary sip of caffeine. “Besides, I feel fine. I don’t know. Maybe I just fell asleep there.” We both look at each other, wondering if either of us believes me.

  “From the look of it, you fainted.”

  “No. It wasn’t that.” I try not to think of my dream, with my father having tumbled down the black hole of his alcoholism, of his near-suicide spiral ten years back that could have come at a much higher price. No, my dad is in Puerto Vallarta with his girlfriend, a trip they’ve made the past three summers, drinking virgin margaritas, wearing ridiculous touristy sombreros and fanny packs.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he says.

  “I am.” I nod. A memory of Ashley Simmons bolts through me. “I’m giving you clarity.” I shake my head again and toss the image free.

  “You still want to do this barbecue? Because it would be totally fine if you canceled. We should probably cancel.”

  “What? Yes, of course!” I tilt my head toward the window to check the weather, and a joint in my back—still angry from my night on the floor—pops loudly. I notice the sweat ring around his T-shirt, the pit stains under his arms. Tyler’s already been out for a run while I lay here splattered on the floor.

  He turns toward the mirror, tugging his damp shirt over his hair in one smooth motion and sighing the tiniest of sighs that only his wife of a decade can detect. I know he’d rather not go. I know that he’s weary from making small talk with the same people he sees day in, day out. That he’ll perk up when the conversation turns to baseball, and that everyone will thump him on the back at the memory of his championship ring, but still, he’ll suck down his beer and wish that he were someplace where he didn’t have to justify himself to himself, because—as I have told him too many times of late—he’s the only one who feels let down with who he’s become. Everyone else thinks he is king of the world.

  I linger in bed, watching him strip his sweaty clothes, tying a towel around his waist, when the phone rings—too early, too loud, and we both jump. The coffee spills on the white duvet, spreading like a pool of blood at a crime scene. Ty recovers before I do and takes one lone, giant stride toward the nightstand, and flips the receiver onto his naked shoulder.

  Darcy, I think, remembering our fight, how we left things. Maybe she’s calling to apologize. Until I realize the absurdity of that idea, because Darcy would never call to apologize. My anger breeds itself all over again. How many times have I apologized to HER ass? Not this time! No, for once, not this time.

  “Hey, Timmy,” Tyler says, mouthing “Timmy Hernandez” to me, his brow furrowing.

  “What?” I whisper, but he raises his index finger, telling me to hold on, my thoughts of my delinquent, stubborn sister evaporating.

  “No, no, I understand,” he says to the phone. “Sure, yes, she’s right here. Hang on.” He passes the phone to me, covering the receiver with his palm. “It’s your father. They arrested him this morning when he plowed his car into a tree off Harbor Road.”

  “What?” I say shrilly, my dream needling its way back into my consciousness, right alongside a dark swath of fear that I conjure up so quickly, too quickly, a mirror of my past. “He’s supposed to be in Mexico!”

  “He was drunk, Till,” Tyler says softly, but I barely hear him. My stomach rises up and my tongue convulses, and I dry-heave over my coffee-spattered comforter. Then I move the phone to my ear to listen to Timmy Hernandez, the town sherriff, tell me everything I already somehow seem to know.

  Three hours later, my father is snoring in our guest bedroom, as he has been since I brought him home from the station. His right eye is the color of grape jelly, but otherwise, he looks mostly okay, though, of course, I know that he is anything but.

  I’ve instructed Tyler to run to the grocery store and pick up all the pound cake and premade cupcakes he can find. We’re still due at Luanne’s this afternoon, and it’s too late to cancel. She and Darcy would know something is wrong, and then they’d press me, and then I’d have to either lie or tell them the truth, and neither of those options seems palatable. I would tell Luanne, but not today, not during her annual can’t-miss Fourth of July blowout. And Darcy—we aren’t speaking anyway, and this news would be like the match to her TNT: combustible. The last thing I need. My head hurts enough as it is. My father, well, I can manage him for a few more hours, probably a few more days, until I figure out a plan to tidy this up.

  “This is what I do,” I said to Tyler earlier, while he listened to me skeptically. “I take care of things for people. I’ll handle this, just please, go to the store because I can’t be two places at once.” He popped his eyes at my chiding, at my bite, which was unfamiliar to both of us, but it had stuck with me through the night—this edge, this razor blade cutting through my psyche. Jesus Christ, Tyler! Just go to the goddamn store and pick me up some freaking pound cake! How hard is that? Get your ass up from the couch and turn off ESPN while I manage the nitty-gritty. Is that too much to ask? I handed him the keys, and he left without another word.

  Now, I’m tucked on the velour armchair in the corner of the guest room, keeping my father company, my feet curled under me, a blanket draped over my legs. The open window blows in pleasant, soothing air, a balm after yesterday’s torrid onslaught.

  While I wait for my dad to come to, to offer some sort of rational explanation, I try to focus on work. I reach for CJ’s grade report—she’s amping up to apply to Wesleyan this fall; she’ll mail the application off to the university so far from here and send every last hope for her future along with it. As I tug out the file, the Polaroid of Susanna from the day before slips out of my purse. Just yesterday? I think. It feels like forever ago. Before my ungraceful run-in with Ashley Simmons. Before the explosion at the cemetery with Darcy. Before my father got up and drunk and became one with a tree. Before I intuited that he would do so in the first place. That last one, that’s the stickler.

  I drop the photo back into the bag, abandoning hope of distraction while waiting for my dad to awaken. My dream from last night keeps pressing into the corners of my brain: how it seemed so tangibly real, how I blacked out without warning. My father gasps a deep inhale, and I glance up at him, waiting to hear his excuses, waiting for something more than Timmy Hernandez could offer under the fluorescent lights at the sleepy police station that never sees much more action than the occasional DUI or domestic violence call.

  Timmy was generous enough not to press charges.

  “Tyler and I go a long way back,” he said to me, touching my elbow and leaning in close enough that I could smell the stale coffee on his breath. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was trying to get a peek at my boobs. “You know, the team and all that. So this is a personal favor to him.” Peering at him now, you’d never recognize the once ace pitcher for the ’95 Wizards. Timmy’s paunch flopped over his fading leather belt and his hairline was beginning to resemble the Great Lakes, looping widely above his forehead.

  “I appreciate that very, very much,” I said, searching over his doughy shoulder for my dad.

  “The thing is, Tilly—” Timmy paused and rubbed the crux of his neck. “From what I understand, this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”

  “No, no, you’re right.” I waved my hand, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “After my mother died …” I trailed off.

  “No, what I mean”—Timmy lowered his voice—“is that this isn’t the first time it’s happened of late. We spoke with Cindy Heller over at Mickey Mantle’s, and evidently, he’s been in nearly every night the past few weeks.”

  At the
mention of Cindy Heller, I felt the blood drain from my face, as if someone had stuck a vacuum up my nostrils and flipped it on high. A wave of my dream ran through me, an exorcism.

  Now, the front door slams shut, and my father bristles in his sleep. Tyler peeks his head inside the door frame, holding up two grocery bags as evidence. I glide from the chair and go into the kitchen.

  “We shouldn’t leave him,” he says, dropping the bags on the dining table. “What happens if he wakes up?”

  “I threw out all of the alcohol in the house,” I say, like that’s the only thing I need to worry about if my off-the-wagon father wakes up in our guest bedroom while I’m at my sister’s Fourth of July party, sucking on ribs and flicking buttered corn on the cob out of my teeth. Ty glares at me, fleetingly, then it is gone, the idea of his beloved beer going down the drain. Oh, grow up! I think, then shake it off. What is wrong with me? I exhale, purging my negativity, attempting to inhale a fresh outlook.

  “I’ll stay here with him,” he offers, like this is in any way a selfless act.

  “I don’t want to go without you!” I crack open the plastic cupcake bins, and Ty hands me a serving plate.

  “I think you should,” he says as we unload each cupcake onto the plate in tandem. “To be honest, I’m beat from the fair. Talked out. And I think someone should be here when he wakes up.”

  Yeah, I should, I think, annoyed at his cop-out, abandoning my attempt at positivity.

  “Fine,” I say with a sigh, because I don’t want to argue with him, because we stopped arguing years ago, each of us recognizing that it’s just easier to let the other one be. And besides, I don’t trust myself right now, this unfamiliar anger nipping my tongue, begging to be unleashed. “Luanne and Ben will be disappointed. And Charlie, he’ll ask for you.”