Ellie was not a slut. Ellie was my only friend. And I was a loser for thinking all that conflicting shit about her. She went home, Jupiterian free, and told me she’d see me at the star party the following night. I reminded her that I might be late because I had graduation.
This stopped her in midstep. She looked at me and smiled. It was a pained smile.
“I really wish I could be there,” she said. “I can’t miss your graduation. You’re my best friend.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’ll see you at the party. I know they don’t want you to—uh—you know.”
“Leave?”
“I guess.”
“I’ll get my dad to stick up for me.”
“Good luck with that.”
This made us laugh, but without smiling. The kind of laugh that made me realize that Ellie felt left out. That she felt like a freak again. And a slut. And the opposite of free. As I walked back to the house, I thought about what it must be like to be so controlled by Jasmine Blue.
I thought about how controlled I was by a mother who wasn’t even there.
Dad was in the kitchen heating up two microwave dinners. Mine had cobbler in the dessert tray and I added a scoop of ice cream because it was delicious. Who wouldn’t eat cobbler and ice cream every day if they could? I was no one special and I could eat cobbler and ice cream every fucking day if I wanted.
When dinner was done, we tossed our plastic trays into the recycling and Dad went back to the couch and his laptop while I made a move toward the basement door.
“Find anything interesting down there today?” Dad asked.
I wanted to tell him about Darla’s hidden sketchbook. Instead, I asked, “What did you mean when you said Ellie didn’t fall far from the tree? I take it Jasmine Blue was—uh…?”
“It was the nineties.”
“It wasn’t that different.”
“It was different when we all moved out here,” he said.
“So she was a slut, then? That’s what you said, right?”
“Jasmine Blue did her own thing. Still does.” He laughed.
“Ellie isn’t really a slut. She just had a boyfriend,” I said. “Who was a dick.”
“I’m glad it was that stuff and not a pregnancy test. For her sake, I mean.”
“Yeah.”
He worked on his computer while we talked. I don’t think I ever just saw him doing one thing. Could never slow his brain down enough to meditate, I bet. Maybe that was why he and Darla stopped hanging out at the commune.
“So? Was it good down there?” he asked again.
“I can’t wait to start working,” I said. “I have a roll of black-and-white to develop and then I’ll get some cheap paper and remember how to print. It’s been a while since Mr. Wilson’s history of photography class.”
“Ugh!” He said it with that exclamation point. Ugh! As if I’d just lanced a boil right in front of him or something.
“What?”
“Don’t buy cheap paper. Leave that to me. I’ll order it online. Trust me.”
“But—I—”
“There’s new developer and fixer already. I put it under the kitchen sink.”
“Oh.” How did he know I needed it?
“We used to spend hours in there together.”
“You must miss her,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. Except that maybe it was true. And the truth is.
He sighed. “Every single day, Cupcake. Every single day.” He smiled and looked at me and I avoided eye contact by looking at his arm. “And you’re graduating tomorrow,” he said. “And time just flew by.”
Sounds so convenient, right? Me not having a mom and my dad being all great about it and stuff. But it wasn’t like that. The air was tense. We still had no oven. My cobbler still tasted like radiation, no matter how much ice cream I piled onto it. I could feel the secrets in the soil here. The way Dad talked about Jasmine Blue and the nineties. Something was about to sprout and grow from that soil. I could feel it the same as I could see the mourning dove into infinity.