There’s a big dent in the middle of my forehead from the massage bed. On the bus—driven by CODY from UTAH—I try to massage it out. Oh, the irony—massaging the massage. I feel good, despite it all, simultaneously relaxed and energized. I have a nervous excitement to go to work, like I’m carrying a new, curious weight, not so much a burden but a reminder, a good pressure. Though I should dread seeing Brose, I feel up to the challenge of pleading my case.
I get off of the shuttle a block early so I can walk a bit, get used to my rubbed-down body, and prepare my defense. I tiptoe through the mud in the parking lot, then enter through the kitchen. Brose is already here, taking the stems off of mushrooms. He looks up, not just surprised to see me but sickened by my presence. He snarls, it seems, shakes his head, disgusted and resigned—Of course she’s here, he seems to be thinking. She can do whatever she wants. My confidence in my justifications and arguments weakens. They get tossed like the stems of those mushrooms.
I go to the sink to wash my hands, then walk over.
“Hey,” I say, sidling up to him. I put on gloves, start to help.
He’s got his legs far apart so he doesn’t have to hunch down to the table. He seems cleaner, like he just got out of the shower. His hair is brushed back, and he smells like laundry detergent.
Despite his coldness, a part of me gets warm, stirred. We still had that moment. That can’t unhappen. It’s strange that I didn’t notice how handsome he was as soon as I saw him, how some things take time to announce themselves, how at first I only noticed Nat, the sleek-looking boy, the snake. The kind of boy my parents would like.
“I thought you weren’t going to work here anymore,” he says.
“I start school in a few days. I’ll be gone soon.”
Saying this out loud stuns me. I can’t believe it has come so soon. When I first got here, I counted down the days, and now I’m dreading each passing one. I can’t imagine seeing everyone in my town, at my school. The shame I’ll feel if my dad’s found guilty. The Ice Queen returns as a pathetic puddle. And if he’s not guilty? I’ll still know he is. I’ll still carry the lies, the doubt, and what will our lives look like? How will I define myself? Defend myself?
“I’m dreading it,” I say, wanting to say more, to be able to talk to him fully.
He stops working. “Yeah?” he says, his voice full of venom. “Tough life?”
“Well, yeah, actually. It is.”
He scoffs, gets back to work, and I do, too, matching his angry, quick rhythm. He doesn’t own tough times. I look around the kitchen, but no one else notices the tension. There are four others here, all nodding their heads to the music.
We continue to work in silence, stuffing the crab into the mushroom caps, his rough big hands, my smooth small hands. I don’t know why, but I start to laugh, and when I look up, he has his lips tucked in, as if holding back a smile (or is that wishful thinking?), then he walks away, toward the stockroom.
I pull myself together and follow, find him sitting on a crate with his head in his hands.
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what got into me. Nothing’s funny.”
“I disagree,” he says.
“How so?”
“No matter what, every day, there’s something. Something absurd. Something funny.”
“True,” I say. I look over at him, zero in on a freckle on his neck. “A lot has happened in two days.”
“Yeah?” he says. His voice is so deep. I think of a cave and want to crawl in.
“Yeah.”
I think of the points I had numbered in my head:
My dad hasn’t been proven guilty.
He never intended to stiff his contractor. That was the market.
I never lied to you. I didn’t know.
He has nothing to do with me. I’m still the same.
You’ve been judging me since we met.
But all of this, too, gets tossed.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “Whatever you’re feeling toward me, I deserve. My dad . . .” Tears come to my eyes, and I brush them away like they’re inconvenient pests. “It started out with bad luck, bad timing.” I notice his irritation.
“Bad luck?” He looks up.
“Bad luck led him to make mistakes. I don’t know everything, but I know I’d hate me too if I were you. I’d hate him, and I do sometimes.” The words break me, the admittance of feeling the hate, but still not completely. He’s my father. I can love him, too, right? I don’t even care what I look like right now. I sob, and it’s ugly, and for all I know, Brose has left, but then I feel his hands on my shoulders moving me, then pushing me down to sit on the crate he was using. My hands cover my face. His hand stays on my back, and I wish it could stay there forever, that good pressure.
“I meant to comfort you,” I say. “Not the other way around.”
I feel his hand lift. He sits on the floor in front of me, moves my hands from my face. God, his face, his eyes. They’re like a sanctuary. I want nothing more than to go back to that night, erase my history, start there and repeat, repeat, repeat.
He leans forward, holds the back of my head, and kisses me. I feel a tear drop onto the top of my lip. He can probably taste the salt of me. When he pulls away, I feel reset, restored.
“I should get back,” he says. “Then we’ll . . . figure it out.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Can I stay?” I’m embarrassed by my voice, how desperate it sounds, but I really do want to work. I love the zone it puts me in. I love the camaraderie and also the fact that I have a job, that I can take care of myself.
“Yes,” he says, and seems a little embarrassed, too. He pulls me up. I try to get a look at myself in the reflection of the fridge, but it’s blurry.
“Hey, you know this fridge?” I say, knocking on it. “Skip and Nicole had sex in it.”
He laughs. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, when they were kids like us.”
We stand, facing one another. Kids like us.
“That’s funny,” he says. “But ouch. Kind of cold.”
We both look down and then he walks back toward the kitchen.
We go to our places at the counter, straighten out, get back to work, but now it seems like we have a good secret. I’m enjoying the restraint, like how things are so much funnier when you’re not supposed to laugh.
The music is louder, and there are more people here. I feel like I’ve come out of hiding.