AQUARIUM
MY FIRST WEEK AT Jefferson Hell, as the locals refer to it. The first week back home. I’m doing okay, I reassure myself. I’ve been finding my way around, keeping up with homework, and the buses have been relatively on time. I’ve even had a lunch table to sit at all week—that’s more than I can say for my old school.
We’re all doing okay. No fights. No arguments. Balanced meals and everything. I’m starting to feel things falling into place. The first step to getting our lives back on track. We just need to keep everything running smoothly a little while longer, I tell myself, until Mom can get back home.
That’s what keeps me safe in my little bubble, an invisible barrier between me and everyone else, between me and all the shouting and the excitement of weekend plans, and these hundreds of people who have known one another forever. People who don’t know anything about me. It’s better this way, I assure myself. Less complicated. But as I tack that last thought onto the never-ending monologue that continually runs through my mind, something bursts through, a needle popping the delicate bubble that surrounds me.
“Hey, Winters!” Dani throws her arm over my shoulder, nearly making me drop the stack of books I had perfectly balanced in the crook of my arm. I stoop to catch them before they topple. “I was calling you back there.”
“Oh, sorry. I—I didn’t hear you,” I stammer like an idiot. This has happened every time she’s spoken to me all week—as it turns out, we have AP American History, AP English, and AP Calc together too.
“That’s all right. As long as you weren’t ignoring me,” she adds with a lightness in her voice. She glances sideways at me as I struggle to reposition the stack in my arms. “Can I . . . carry your books for you?”
“No, that’s okay. I got it.”
She rakes her fingers through her hair, messing it up in a way that somehow makes it look even more incredible, shrugging as she mumbles, more to herself than to me, “Well, I tried.”
Seeing her so often is making it so much harder to ignore those old feelings creeping up inside of me. In the past, anytime I ever really, truly let myself think about it, there always seemed to be all these walls standing in the way. I always thought, what did it matter anyway—there was no use in trying to sort it out if there wasn’t anyone real my feelings were attached to. It was nothing more than a concept, a theory, impossible to prove. But I’m beginning to see that this thing with Dani is no theory, not something that’s going to fade away, not something I can simply distract myself from. Because it’s not just a safe, depthless crush; I actually like her. But the truly terrifying part is that I’m pretty sure she likes me, too. And lately those walls don’t seem so tall anymore.
“So, did you need something . . . or something?” I ask her, hating myself for how nervous she makes me. I try to keep us moving down the hall, toward the doors.
“You in a hurry or what?”
“Actually, I kind of am. Sorry, I have a bus to catch. I need to get home.” Which is true. Really, I should be racing to catch the bus, because I need to get Callie to her appointment with Dr. Greenberg. I regret volunteering to take her now, especially when Jackie offered to do it. But it’s not like I can explain any of that to Dani.
“Oh, you take the bus? Well, you know, I’m one of those really obnoxious spoiled brats who got a car for her sixteenth birthday—used, but still.” She pauses before she continues. “And by that I mean I could give you a ride home.”
“No,” I tell her, too quickly. “I mean . . . no, thank you. That’s okay. I’m fine with the bus, I just—I need to get moving, that’s all.” I take a few steps forward.
“Oh. Okay, sure,” she says, walking alongside me now. “I was just going to give you my number. You know, in case you . . . well, just in case.”
Another “just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” I ask her, realizing how suspicious I sound only after it’s already out of my mouth.
She squints at me before a smile breaks out across her face. “I don’t know! What, you want, like, actual concrete scenarios? Just in case of . . . whatever. Maybe you wanna talk or hang or have a homework question?”
“Right, of course. Thanks. Can I get it from you Monday, because I really—”
“Need to go,” she finishes, cutting me off. “I know, I know. Here, why don’t you let me get your number instead?” Pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, she stops walking and looks up at me, her mouth twitching like she’s about to laugh. “Jeez, is that okay?” she asks when I don’t say anything.
“I guess,” I tell her.
“You’re sure?”
“Sure,” I lie, even though everything inside of me is arguing back and forth as I recite my number to her.
“Okay, I’m texting you. That way you’ll have my mine, too.” She starts tapping out a message on her phone, grinning at the screen before looking up at me. “I won’t keep you any longer,” she says, hitching her chin in the direction of the front doors.
“Thanks. Sorry,” I say, feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket as I begin jogging away.
“Have a nice weekend!” she calls after me.
When I turn to look at her, she’s standing there in the middle of the hallway, rocking back on her heels, her thumbs threaded through the belt loops at the waist of her jeans, so casually. She raises one arm to wave. Suddenly disoriented as I turn back around, I nearly slam right into someone.
I have to run to make up for the time I lost talking to her. I reach the bus just as the doors are folding shut. I find a spot with two empty seats and slump down, out of breath, finally able to let go of my books. My arms ache, fossilized into ninety-degree angles. I have to bend them out gently, curling them up and down, as the blood rushes back toward my fingers with a tingle.
The window has been left cracked open, and as the bus gains speed, a cool, welcome breeze fans my face. I feel my phone again, vibrating in my pocket, but I close my eyes, basking in this rare moment of stillness, which, for once, doesn’t feel quite so scary.
Callie’s lying on the couch when I get home, flipping through the channels. Another thing we’ve never really been allowed to do, unless we’re sick, like really sick—like doctor’s-note, stay-home-from-school sick.
“Hey,” I call to her.
She doesn’t even look away from the TV.
“Where’s Aaron?” I ask.
She gives me a shrug.
“Work, probably,” I answer myself. “Look, we have to leave in, like, three minutes, so . . .”
She stabs the on/off button on the remote with her thumb and hoists herself upright, as if getting off the couch is the most taxing activity she’s ever had to complete. Tossing the remote onto the coffee table, she stands and walks into the kitchen, without a word.
I barely have enough time to drop off my books and backpack, go to the bathroom, wash my face, grab a speckled banana, and pop a couple of ibuprofens before we have to rush downstairs to catch the next bus across town to Dr. Greenberg’s.
“So, first week. How’s school been going for you, Cal?” I ask her, needing to raise my voice over the rumbling bus engine, the road noise, the blur of idle chatter. “Are some of your friends in class with you?” I try.
A single nod, barely discernible.
“Has anyone, you know, asked you . . . about what’s going on with Mom and everything?”
She turns to look at me, her hazel eyes seeming to turn black as they bore into me. “You mean like you?” she asks, more words strung together in a row than she’s spoken to me in months, which is a relief, despite the iciness of her tone. “No,” she answers, slowly turning her head away from me to stare out the window again.
The bus lurches, jerking us forward in our seats, as it comes to a grinding halt to let one last person aboard.
I open my mouth, but I can’t think of anything to say that won’t offend her. I wish she would fill me in on the hidden criteria she’s worked out in her head—which topics are off-limits and which are still fair game. I think back to that rainbow day, when I was so close. I’ve been losing ground with her ever since. We sit next to each other in silence as the bus dips and rocks down one street, then the next.
I reach over Callie to pull on the cord as we near the corner building where Dr. Greenberg’s office is located. We descend the giant steps of the bus, still wordless. I follow Callie into the building, then into the elevator—she presses a button and the number seven illuminates—and the doors slide open with a ding. I follow her through another door and into a waiting room, all the while silent. The tension between us pulled taut like a rope being tugged back and forth. Words only pit us against each other, both of us yanking in opposite directions with equal force.
“Callie! Right on time,” the woman behind the reception desk says, the volume of her voice filling the room, each syllable placing strain on the fragile places in my head, threatening to overpower the soft washout effect of the pills. “Dr. Greenberg will be right with you. Please have a seat.”
There’s a giant fish tank in the corner of the room. How did I not notice that before? It’s taller than me. Not only a fish tank—it’s much fancier than that—an aquarium. A habitat. Bright and luminous, fitted perfectly in the corner like it was built specifically for this room. Real plants swaying in the currents created by the humming, motor-powered water pump, and neon-colored fish swimming in circles, charting a path that leads to nowhere. I know from my brief foray into planning out a future career in marine biology that these are tropical fish. I wonder if fish can miss the sea, even if they’ve never lived there. If something instinctual tells them, This isn’t real, this isn’t what life is supposed to be like. Probably not, I decide as I take my seat near an end table stacked with magazines.
Callie sits down directly next to the aquarium and traces her finger along the glass, tracking the path of a flat, disk-shaped blue-and-yellow fish with long, flowing fins.
“Hey,” I whisper to Callie. “Is that new?”
She looks at me, wide eyed, and shakes her head like I’m the stupidest person in the world. I want to ask her if she likes them. The fish. Ask if maybe she’d like to get a small fish tank at home. But I feel that rope once again between us, pulled, stressed, and inflexible.
A phone rings behind the reception desk. “Callie?” the woman calls out. “Dr. Greenberg is ready for you.”
Callie stands and walks toward the door, says “Thank you” to the receptionist, but doesn’t even bother to cast so much as a glance in my direction. I catch a quick glimpse inside the office as she slips through the door. I see a desk—one of those big, old wooden desks—bookcases lining the walls from floor to ceiling, a leather couch overflowing with big pillows, and a table by the window filled with houseplants, green and sprawling. And then the door closes.
I hear muffled greetings exchanged. I strain my ears. I try to switch casually to a seat next to the door. The woman comes out from behind the reception desk, giving me a suspicious sideways glance as she switches on the sound machine that sits on the table next to the door—the white-noise setting. She could’ve at least given me rain forest or thunderstorm.
She goes back to her desk without so much as a word. I’m half afraid she’s going to kick me out. I reach into my bag for my AP English textbook and thumb through the unit on the Romantics so I have something to distract me from her sporadic glares in my direction.
Behind the door, underneath the foamy static of the machine, I hear a small chirp of a laugh followed by the raucous roar of unselfconscious male laughter, accompanied by Callie’s signature hiccup-cough-chuckle sequence, the kind she reserves only for truly funny circumstances.
Un-freaking-believable.
I slam the book closed on Lord Byron and march up to the reception desk. The nameplate reads simply, INGRID. “Ingrid?” I begin. “After Callie’s appointment I need to speak with Dr. Greenberg about something.” She stares up at me with blank, unblinking eyes. I am so goddamn sick of people not responding to me. “It’s about Callie,” I add impatiently, an audible edge to my voice. “Five minutes?”
She sighs.
“Three minutes?” I feel my fists clench at my sides. “It’s important.”
Reluctantly she shifts her bored gaze from my face to her ancient computer screen, double-clicking her mouse. “There’s a chance he’ll have a few minutes before his next appointment. But in the future you really need to schedule appointments ahead of time.”
I clamp my mouth shut on the words in my mouth. It’s not an appointment. Instead I force a smile and tell her, grudgingly, “Thank you very much.”
Back in my seat by the door and the noise machine, I feel my phone suddenly vibrate in my pocket. I reach for it. I have eight missed messages from Dani.
The first is from 2:20, while I was still standing in front of her:
This is me, busy girl.
Watching you run away from me right now . . . Wow. You almost just plowed a kid down in the hall! You really are in a hurry. Ha.
Then 2:25: GURRRRL, you are SUPER serious!
Hmm, what are we going to do about that??? lemme think . . .
At 3:33: Hey! It’s dani. Remember me? Your brilliant study buddy? Umm . . . are you getting these?
OMG, you gave me a fake number, didn’t you? Ouch.
And 4:51: OK, now you’re giving me a complex :(
JK . . . well, sort of ;)
I stare at the words for a long time. They make me smile, against my will. But how do I respond to this girl, this girl who’s normal enough to think I’m somehow normal enough to know how to do this—whatever this is? How do I respond to frowny face and winky face?
Hi, I begin.
I delete. I try again.
Hey
Delete.
Oh, hi
Wrong—delete.
Sorry, just saw this
Delete, delete, delete, delete.
I start typing at least a dozen messages, but no words are adequate, no words make me seem cool enough, sane enough. No words leave me feeling safe. Because no matter what I write, I’m opening myself up to something I’m not sure I can actually handle. Not right now. And maybe not ever.
Just then the door opens. Callie walks through, followed by a short-statured man. His jacket has elbow patches, and his thinning hair is speckled white. “Well, you must be the famous Brooke,” he says, stepping toward me.
“Famous?” I repeat, pocketing my phone as I stand.
He shrugs noncommittally. “What can I say, I lead a sheltered life. Please, come on in,” he says, his smile never fading as he holds his door open.
Callie eyes me suspiciously.
“I’ll only be a minute,” I tell her.
No response.
I cross over to the other side of the door. It feels warmer in here, softer, dimmer. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this room is lit by lamps, rather than the overhead fluorescent lights of the waiting room that make everything look vaguely neon, not quite real, like we’re in a fish tank ourselves.
He closes the door behind us and walks past me to take a seat on the couch. He crosses one leg and holds his hand out, gesturing to me. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
I take a seat opposite him.
“So, what’s on your mind?”
“Um,” I begin. “Well, thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice. I just wanted to check in, I guess.”
He nods slowly, uncertainly. Waiting, as if I haven’t finished my sentence.
“About Callie,” I clarify.
“Oh. Sure.” But then he still doesn’t respond.
“I mean, I guess I wanted to see how she’s doing.”
“Well, how do you think she’s doing?” he asks me.
“I don’t know. Seems like school is maybe going okay. At least, we haven’t heard any differently. But at home, I don’t know, she just seems so . . . angry.”
“Hmm.” He nods again. “And what about you, are you angry?”
“Me? No. I’m saying Callie seems angry.”
“Okay. Well . . . what makes you think that?” he asks.
“Well,” I say pointedly, “it’s pretty clear. I mean, every time I try to talk to her, she shuts it down. Like, with me in particular. But she’s obviously talking, right? I mean, she talks to you. She must be talking enough at school to be getting by. I’ve seen her mumble stuff to our brother. But she won’t talk to me. It’s like she’s mad at me for something, and all I’m trying to do—all anyone is trying to do—is help.”
He reaches for the notepad and pen that have been sitting next to him. He scribbles something, then looks back up at me. “Go ahead.” He gives me another encouraging, bobbleheaded nod.
“That’s it.” I can feel my pulse speeding up, feel that vein near my temple beginning to throb. “I’m—I’m asking you a question.”
“About Callie?”
“Yes, about Callie.” I can feel my tone sharpening, my patience dwindling. “Is she doing any better? Because it doesn’t seem like it.”
“I really can’t talk too much about it, but I think she’s making progress, yes,” he finally answers.
“Okay, great. Then, what can I be doing differently?” I ask him, hearing the edge in my voice making me enunciate each syllable. “I’m constantly walking on eggshells around her and still nothing I do is right. Everything I say is wrong.”
Nods. Again. “You know, why don’t you come back next week? Just you. And we can talk more about all of this.”
“Next week? But what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I mean, I don’t need a whole appointment, just—do you have any tips?”
He stands and removes his glasses, then wipes them on his shirt. I stand as well, since it appears I’m being kicked out. He looks me in the eye. Without his glasses as a barrier, this silent exchange feels too intimate somehow. “Sometimes if people seem like they need some space, that might be exactly what they need.”
“So you’re telling me to give her space?”
“Not necessarily. Maybe it’s you who needs space.” He frowns, turns his head slightly, then shrugs once, as if to say, Hmm, beats me.
I take a deep breath and hold the air in my lungs until my chest aches, trying to think of any response that won’t come out sounding mean and snarky. I exhale, unable to think of a single one. I’m seriously beginning to wonder about the psychiatric profession as a whole.
“We’ll talk more next week,” he assures me, placing his glasses back on his face as he ushers me out into the waiting room, where Callie sits in her spot next to the aquarium, jiggling her foot back and forth like she wants to jiggle right out of her body. The fish swim frantically behind the glass, flapping around, seeming to mirror her movements.
Dr. Greenberg whispers something to Ingrid. I keep one eye on the agitated fish while Ingrid and I toss days and times at each other. Finally she hands me a card to remind me of my appointment next week: Wednesday at 3:00. On the ride home I don’t even try to talk to Callie.
But I do decide right then and there that I’m going to let Jackie bring Callie to her appointments from now on. I will call the office on Tuesday afternoon and tell Ingrid something’s come up. School, work, transportation, et cetera. Dr. Greenberg is going to be useless anyway. He doesn’t get me, I can tell already, doesn’t get our family, but then again, no one does.