25
LARISSA
OU HAVE TO feed him with a flat hand,” I said. “Like the way youY feed the goats at a petting zoo or he’ll bite your fingers.”
Chris laughed from the driver’s seat. “He doesn’t do that to me.”
“What do you mean? He bites me every time I give him a treat. He’s too excited.”
“You gotta make him wait until he’s calm,” he said, changing lanes. “He has to be a good boy to get a treat.”
“So what you’re saying is, he’s a totally different dog with you,” I deadpanned.
Chris glanced at me, his eyes sparkling.
We’d been driving around for two hours. It was almost 1:00 a.m.—way past his bedtime. We were all the way out by Hugo now. It would be another thirty-five minutes to get home, but he’d insisted on doing one
more picture.
I felt bad, but I did need the money.
And I was having a good time.
“I’m going to have a word with Woofarine when I get home,” I said.
“You think he can be negotiated with?” he asked.
“Yes. I think we should normalize arguing with our pets. He threw up
yesterday, by the way.”
“He did? What did he eat?” he asked.
“His favorite. Trash. I need to get a can with a lid. He was completely in there. I got him out and he threw up. Before I could grab him, he ate the vomit.”
“I think Woofarine would tell you that it’s better to have eaten something, thrown it up, and eaten it again than to have never eaten it at all,” he said.
“I feel like there’s wisdom in there, but it’s too gross for me to see it.”
He chuckled while he turned onto a dirt road, the entrance to our sixth and last billboard. They’d all been the Toilet King.
The billboard was next to the freeway, but I couldn’t get a good shot of it driving by. The board number had to be in it, and my camera wasn’t the greatest, so Chris navigated to it taking the back way.
We crept down the service road at a crawl, the car bumping along the uneven ground. It was wooded and dark. A rabbit darted in front of us and disappeared into the brush.
“Weren’t you going to tell me a story about work?” I asked, peering out the window at the moon slipping between the trees.
“Oh, right. So I was at Bergmans yesterday and a guy comes in to pick up his prescription. He was pissed because his insurance didn’t cover it.”
“Yeah…”
“He came with a ziplock bag full of change.”
“Like, to pay? What’d you say?” I asked.
“That I wasn’t taking it. He said I had to because it’s legal tender. I told him no and that there’s a coin machine at the grocery store across the street and he can cash it in there if he wants to, but I’m not counting that.”
I shook my head. “I cannot believe that people act like this. But then also, I can.”
“Why? People act like dicks at Donna’s?”
“Ha. You have no idea,” I mumbled.
He glanced at me. “Like what?”
“Like the guy who told me my tip was to get a better job? The enormous group that comes in every Sunday and leaves me pamphlets instead of money. Or the lady who likes to come in with a party of five and give me
three silver dollars at the end.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh yeah. She’s very proud of it too. She thinks they’re special so I should be excited about the two percent tip. She goes to the bank just to get them. I can’t even put them in the machine at the laundromat.”
“Wait,” he said. “Why are you going to the laundromat?”
“Because my building doesn’t have a working laundry room?”
“Go to Mike’s.”
I looked out the window again. “The washing machine is in Donna’s
house. I try not to be over there more than I have to be.”
We were pulling into a clearing. The billboard loomed in the middle on its thick steel pole like a strange tree. Chris drove up to where I could get a good shot.
“Why don’t you want to go to Donna’s?” he asked, putting the car in
park.
I didn’t answer.
His brows drew down. “Is she mean to you?”
I shrugged a little. “Not mean, just… unenthusiastic?”
He seemed bothered by this.
“She’s never said or done anything,” I said. “Please don’t tell Mike.”
“I won’t.”
“She’s fine, honestly.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You know Mike would not be all right with that if he knew. He would talk to her.”
“About what? Liking me more?” I gave him a face.
He pressed his lips together.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not though. She’s lucky her son has someone like you. She should
be grateful.”
I scoffed. “Right.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not exactly a prize, Chris.”
He looked at me like I’d lost it.
I ticked off on my fingers. “I’m a high school dropout, thirty thousand dollars in debt, my father is a felon, my mom is my mom—”
“So? You take care of him. You’re smart, you’re funny, driven. And
you’re—”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me. What?” I said.
He rubbed his mouth. “I was just… I mean. You know.”
“What do I know?”
“You’re… you’re beautiful.”
I grinned. “Awwwwww, you think I’m beautiful?” I teased.
“Stop.”
“No way.”
“Objectively,” he said. “I’m not saying that I think—”
“Oh, of course not.” I grinned again and pulled my legs into my chest under my dress. “Thanks, Chris. You’re beautiful too.” I put my cheek to my knees. Then I lifted my head again. “If you think I’m pretty, why didn’t you want to drive me home that night? You didn’t even hit on me,” I joked.
“I… I tried,” he said. “You went with Mike.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“I mean, I tried to drive you home,” he said quickly. “Not hit on you.”
He glanced at me, then looked away. His cheeks were turning pink.
He was lying.
I stared at him. “You were interested?” I asked. “In me?”
“We should not be talking about this—”
“No, you just seemed so irritated. I’m surprised is all. I thought…” I trailed off. “I thought you didn’t want to. I figured I wasn’t your type or you weren’t looking or something. Or you really didn’t want to drive a stranger to River Grove,” I said, laughing a little.
He sat there, silent. Peering out the driver’s side window, probably so he wouldn’t have to look at me. I looked at him instead, like I could glean what he wasn’t saying from the side of his face.
I couldn’t.
“So did the coin guy come back with bills?” I asked, changing the subject.
“The coin guy dumped the whole bag and clotheslined it over the
counter at my pharmacy tech.”
“He didn’t…”
“I had to call the cops,” he said, looking back at me. “He got arrested for
assault. With pennies.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I’m not.”
“Working retail should be mandatory. You could not convince me that the world wouldn’t be full of better humans.”
“Treat it like jury duty,” he said.
“Yes. And they have to substitute teach one day too.” I sat back in my seat and sighed. “I would love to get out of customer service.”
“Me too. I might start looking for something else.”
“Like what?”
“A hospital job probably. Won’t have to deal with patients or customers,” he said, looking up at the billboard.
Then the conversation stopped. We just sat there, looking up at the sign.
Had Chris really been interested?
I thought back to that night. Mike, being Mike. Flirty and smiling at me.
And Chris, hands in his pockets, dark cloud.
But then I remembered something. How he’d mentioned that he was closer to River Grove than Mike was.
At the time I took it like he was letting me know that I’d be inconveniencing Mike more than him. It didn’t feel like a bid to get me to go with him.
But now that I knew Chris, I saw it differently. That was a bid. And I’d missed it.
Chris had been hitting on me, in his own quiet way, but was eclipsed by Mike. He’d wanted me.
I don’t know why but this flipped my entire reality around. A record
scratch.
I just never thought… I never thought I was good enough for someone like him.
And that’s really what it came down to. Yes, he’d looked unapproachable. But really, when I reflected on it, it was when Lexi told me Chris was a pharmacist that I chose Mike.
I figured someone like Chris would want someone smarter or more educated. A doctor or something. Someone on his level.
And what did he think now? Did getting to know me make it different?
I guess it didn’t matter.
Obviously what was supposed to happen happened.
I was with Mike—and I cared about him. Deeply. But I wasn’t sure if I loved him. I kept waiting for it to be clearer, and it just never was.
Maybe what Lexi said all those months ago had been right, my candle was burning low. I thought that things would heat up as time went on, but they didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Or if I should do anything at all.
I didn’t want to be the kind of person who gets comfortable in an okay
relationship and just wiggles down into it and never leaves.
I didn’t want to make mistakes and then just keep making them like Mom did. But I also didn’t want to be the kind of person who gives up something steady and promising without giving it a chance to be great. I didn’t want to break up with a good man, especially when he hadn’t done anything wrong. And maybe in six months I’d feel differently, I’d know for sure which way I was leaning. But no matter which way that ended up being, this was the direction I’d chosen and Chris was right: There was no point in talking about it now. We were friends. He was my boyfriend’s best friend. Whatever “What If” could have happened didn’t and it never would.
Maybe it wasn’t supposed to.
We stared up at the sign for a moment. I had to take the picture, but I didn’t want to. Once I did, the night would be over and I wasn’t ready.
Maybe I wanted the adventure of it, or the high of making the money, or maybe I didn’t want to go back to my tiny, crowded, smokey apartment.
Or maybe it was something else.
“Thanks for taking me to do this,” I said.
“No problem,” he said, not looking at me.
I smiled softly up at The King. “Can I pay you for the gas?” I asked.
“No. Then you won’t make your quota.”
“Please?”
“Nope.”
I wanted to argue, but I didn’t think it would help. And anyway, he was right. I couldn’t really afford to give it to him.
“I hate being broke,” I said, so quietly I was surprised he heard me.
“It won’t always be like this,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re too industrious.”
“Lots of very hardworking people live in poverty.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got the other stuff. The business sense, the tenacity, the intuition.”
“You can tell all that just from sharing a dog with me?” I teased.
“No, I can tell because I see it.” He turned to me now and looked me in
the eye.
The corner of my lip twitched.
“I can either chase the life I want or I can settle for the life I have, Chris.
And I will never settle. That doesn’t mean I’ll ever get anywhere. It just means I won’t ever stop trying.”
He studied me quietly and I took in a deep breath and let it out.
“Sometimes, when I’m feeling sorry for myself,” I said, “I think about how rich I’d be five hundred years ago. I get to drink coffee every morning imported from foreign lands. I have sugar just lying around and fruits out of season.”
“The finest textiles,” he said, nodding at my Hawaiian dress with Woofarine’s face on it.
I laughed and rested my head against the seat. “Five hundred years ago you’d be sticking leeches on people and doing incantations to rid them of demons.”
“We still do the leech thing,” he said. “I’d be an apothecary. Probably growing my own herbs. And doing the demon thing.”
“I’d be a bar wench,” I mumbled.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d own the tavern.”
I smiled softly. I didn’t believe it, but I appreciated that he said it.
“It helps to put things in perspective,” I said. “I’m lucky when I think about it.”
He didn’t answer me and we slipped into silence again.
I raised my phone, took the picture, sent it through. And then we just sat there, the freeway humming nearby.
It was weird because technically we should be driving home now, but he didn’t make any move to leave, and I didn’t really want to leave either. It was like our talks in the doorway, the ones that just kept going.
“How have the nightmares been?” I asked, looking at him. “Are you still
having them?”
He was quiet for a long beat. “Yes.”
“They’ll get better,” I said.
“Eventually,” he said. “Or so they say.”
I peered back at the billboard.
“My mom drank herself to death.”
I looked over at him. “What?”
“She died of cirrhosis of the liver. She was an alcoholic.”
I blinked at the side of his face. “Chris…” I breathed.
“I have never said those words to anyone outside of therapy. Ever.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “You haven’t told Mike?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I just didn’t,” he said, turning to me. “I’m not ashamed of her. That’s not why. I understand it’s a disease and there were things out of her control.
I’m ashamed of myself because I should have known.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I didn’t.”
I watched him in the silence.
“It didn’t even feel like she drank a lot,” he said. “She’d have a mimosa at breakfast. A cocktail with lunch, two or three glasses of wine with dinner —I mean, she was retired. She was with her friends, she was just enjoying life.”
“Is that all it takes?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah. Five drinks a day for five years, that’s all it takes. Especially for women. I had never, in my entire life, seen her drunk or even buzzed. I mean, now that I look back, it’s probably because her tolerance was so high.
She always liked her wine, but it was never an issue. She was a hospitalist, an incredibly functional person.”
His eyes were sad. “Why didn’t I see it? I should have known. I’m a pharmacist. I know about addiction, know what dependency looks like.”
“Chris…”
“I sent her wine for her birthday,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. “That haunts me now. Like I shipped her an expensive poison as a present.”
I pivoted in my seat. “Okay, first of all, you shouldn’t feel guilty about enabling what you didn’t know was going on,” I said. “She was a doctor,
yes?”
He nodded.
“You’re telling me she didn’t notice? She didn’t know what could happen? There weren’t points in her decline where she could have taken steps to save herself? There weren’t doctors or friends who were with her a lot more than you were who called her out on it? Tried to intervene?”
“There were, but—”
“I lost my voice screaming for my dad to change. I was never loud enough for him to hear me. And you probably wouldn’t have been either.
The reality is that most people with addiction won’t do what they have to do for anyone else. They have to want to do it for themselves, have to hit their rock bottom and decide to save their own lives. You didn’t know, Chris.
And it sounds like she didn’t want you to. It’s not. Your. Fault.”
We stared at each other over the center console, and I watched my words move over him. The almost desperate look in his eyes transformed into something softer and hopeful. Like maybe what I said was the truth. Maybe he wasn’t responsible for the actions of everyone around him after all.
Chris took a lot upon himself. I saw it. The way he always looked out for Mike. The way he took such good care of Woofarine.
The way he took care of me.
I thought about the nuts he’d tossed in the trash at the cabin. I kept coming back to it. It didn’t even surprise me that he checked the pantry for me. It didn’t surprise me that he found me something to eat today, or that he took me to get these pictures. In fact, it would surprise me if he didn’t.
Chris loved with his whole heart. He gave all of himself to the people he
cared about.
And he cared about me.
I could see it. The gentle way he looked at me sometimes reminded me a little of the way Mike looked at me, even though I knew rationally it was not even close to the same thing. And I couldn’t explain how I knew, but telling him that his mom’s death wasn’t his fault meant something to him because what I thought mattered. It’s why he told me and nobody else. My words carried a different weight for him, and I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why. Unless maybe I was for him what he’d become for me. A friend. Maybe even one of the closest he had.
I studied him in the light of the billboard. He studied me back.
“I think she would have really liked you,” he said quietly.
“And I would have thanked her for raising such a good human being,” I said.
Something flashed across his expression, but it was gone before I could tell what it was.
“I’m not good,” he said. “Believe me. I don’t always do the right thing.”
“But you always try.”
He breathed out like the praise took something from him. He looked so vulnerable sitting there. I had the strongest urge to hug him. To put my hand
over his or climb into his lap and hold him.
I didn’t realize Mike hadn’t been there for him. And maybe that was my fault. Now that I was in Mike’s life, maybe I was taking space that otherwise might have gone to Chris.
Who comforted Chris when he needed it? Nobody.
And that broke my heart.
Something moved beyond the base of the billboard and disrupted the moment.
I turned and leaned forward to look out the windshield in the glow of the headlights.
There was an animal tangled in the blaze-orange plastic fencing lining the lot. I gasped and unbuckled my seat belt.
“What?” Chris asked.
“Something’s stuck in the fence,” I said, getting out. “I think it’s a baby deer.”