A Summer Nowhere

As tiny as Jenny was, she sure took up a lot of space when she wanted to. She was in my bedroom floor, her arms stretched up and out over her head and her knees wide apart like she'd frozen in the middle of making a snow angel. Her hair kind of swished up and down over the air conditioning vent she was hogging.

“It's so hot!” Jenny sounded kind of like what I'd imagine a dying moose would sound like. “We're gonna' be the last people on the face of the planet to get central air conditioning.”

I was trying to pretend that I wasn't thrilled to death by having Jenny come over. She came over all the time, but since I hadn't been talking to Sam, I just figured she'd take her sister's side. And then there she was earlier that afternoon, walking through the front door like she owned the place, just like always. We were just laying around, listening to music, and Heather was actually being decent company for once. She was propped up on my pillows, telling Jenny and me about how in her mom's old trailer, they were lucky if the one air conditioner they had was working and how living with Mama and me was like a dream, now that she thought about it.

It was Saturday and they'd been talking about all of the things we could be doing instead of sitting around at home. I didn't really want to go out and do anything. In nine days, school would start and I always got nervous before the first day, no matter how old I got. I'd been all antsy for days. My stomach just kinda hurt all the time and I felt like I was gonna' hurl but never did. The only thing that had helped even a little bit was having Gary come over and just hang out with me, sharing all the quiet. I just felt exhausted, like I was gearing up for a disaster and I wanted to rest up for it. But it didn't look like I was gonna' get away with doing what I wanted. I mean, what else was new?

As far as ideas went, we were pretty set on going into Bowling Green, but we were stuck between going to the bowling alley and going to the skating rink. Heather was leaning more toward the bowling alley because they had pool tables and she said she could probably hustle up some cash because she was pretty good, not that she wanted to brag about it or anything. Normally, I hated to agree with her, but I was no good on wheels and the last thing I needed was to fall on my butt and break a bone or two. Plus, they'd been throwing the idea of a triple-date around and I knew there was no way I'd get Gary to step foot inside a skating rink. Other than the kid infested rink itself, it was wall to wall neon carpet underneath a ton of cheap disco balls and strobe lights. He'd be miserable.

“Should I invite you-know-who to come along?” Jenny asked me, sitting up so quick that I could tell she'd made herself a little bit dizzy.

“No!” Heather yelled before I could even say anything. I was gonna' say anything anyway. I was gonna' use up all my energy to keep myself from saying a word.

“Alright, alright.” Jenny lifted her hands up in surrender. “I won't say a word about it.”

“She'll wonder where you're going.” I told her. “She's nosy and stubborn and has to be in everybody's business all the time.”

“I can't argue with that.” Jenny shook her head. “I'll just tell her the truth. Except I won't mention you.”

“No!” Heather hollered again. “Tell her you're going out with me and Jobie and Gary and Mike and she's not invited.”

Jenny looked at Heather and then at me and laughed like she'd just heard the most hilarious thing. I bet she was thinking the same thing I was, which was that I couldn't think of a time when either of us had ever just been downright rude to Sam the way she sometimes was to us. One time after Sam complained about being bored so much that Lynn offered to drive us to Bowling Green and drop us off at the mall, Sam refused to go if Jenny was coming along and said that it was because she didn't want to be seen with her and have people think they were related.

“She's gonna' get so mad.” Jenny's eyes got wide, like she was scared, but she was still laughing.

“She'll live.” Heather told her, hopping off of my bed and going into the walk-in closet that used to belong to Mama and Dennis.

I didn't have nearly enough clothes to even fill up half of it, so the space that my clothes didn't take up was full of boxes with Christmas and Halloween decorations. We listened to Heather rummage around for a minute and then she came back out without anything in her hands.

“Your wardrobe is in serious need of an upgrade.” She told me, looking disgusted.

I already knew that, so I didn't need her reminding me. But I was trying real hard to make a serious effort to be nicer to her since she'd started being nicer to me. It was probably because we weren't sharing a room anymore and didn't get sick of one another as fast. So I just said “Yeah.”

“I think what you're wearing is cute.” Jenny offered.

I looked down at my same-ole-same-ole cut off shorts and black tank top. I wouldn't've really called it cute, but I didn't guess I needed to get all dressed up just to go bowling. It was already bad enough that I'd have to wear those hideous shoes. Sam and I used to go bowling all the time when Lynn was dating a guy who was in a league with his factory buddies. We used to tell the guy behind the shoe counter our sizes and try and get the least disgusting ones possible, but they were all pretty bad and we'd just end up laughing at ourselves.

When I thought about it, I'd had the most fun with Sam when we were goofing off by ourselves instead of trying to pretend like we were cooler than we were. Actually, she really was cool. I wasn't even half as cool as her. And I didn't know what she'd done to get that way, except be pretty. And crazy. One time when I'd been brave enough to ask what it was about her that made all the boys just fawn all over her even if she was a bitch to them, which she was a lot of the time, she said that they were attracted to her crazy. She said she was damaged and mentally unstable and boys just really seemed to like that. It took me a really long time to figure out that I wasn't desperate enough to find some kind of way to make myself crazy like her. I couldn't really decide when I figured that out, though.

“I think you should let me braid your hair.” Jenny said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

At some point, she'd hopped up onto the bed next to me and Heather was rummaging through a little crate on my dresser that had makeup in it. For whatever reason, she felt it necessary to announce that my makeup collection was embarrassing and that she'd be right back with her own stuff. She slammed the door behind her like I'd offended her with my lack of cosmetics. I made a little mental note in my head to get some more makeup and then also mentally smacked myself in the face because where was I even gonna' wear anything other than mascara and a little bit of concealer to cover a zit every once in a while?

“Fine.” I handed Jenny my hairbrush and a ponytail holder and sat there while she yanked my head around until she'd smoothed out all my crazy waves and fashioned them into a big, long, braid that fell over my left shoulder. It was just like the one she'd done for my first date with Gary and I decided I really liked the mermaid look. But I could do without the yanking and pulling.

“What is it with you and your sister?” I asked, rubbing my scalp when she was done. “Y'all act like you're taking out all your frustrations on my head when you brush my hair.”

“Sorry.” She giggled quietly. “You're just tender headed.”

“Alright.” Heather said when she busted back into the room. She had two of those little Kaboodle things, one in each hand, and kicked the door closed with the heel of her foot. I wasn't sure how she'd gotten back in, but I didn't ask.

“None of that stuff is gonna' look any good on me.” I told her. “You're about ten shades darker than I am.”

“I keep light foundation because I like to put it under my eyes sometimes.” Heather said, then said “Dark circles,” like I couldn't put two and two together.

I sat real still and closed my eyes while she rubbed and patted and brushed and shellacked my face with all kinds of stuff. It felt heavy, like if I ran my fingernail down my cheek, it would start peeling off like crayon wax. When I was in kindergarten, we got to color a piece of paper with whatever crazy colors we wanted, and then we got to cover it all up with a thick layer of black crayon by pressing down real hard. In the end, we got to use those little safety scissors to make designs on the paper. My face felt kind of like that.

Every once in a while, Jenny would say something about how good I was gonna' look or how no, that really wasn't my color. When I finally went into the bathroom to look in the mirror, I didn't know what I was supposed to think. My skin didn't even look like it was mine. The foundation was covering up all of my pores, which I guess was good, but also it felt like it was really digging its way in there and making a lot of oil that I was gonna' have to scrub off later. Heather had brushed my eyelids with all different shades of black and gray and it looked like dark, heavy smoke. Like when you burned tires. It didn't look bad, especially with the way she had smudged eyeliner real careful underneath my eyes.

The only thing I could not and would not deal with was the bright, fire engine red lipstick she'd put on me. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and scrubbed it off of my lips until they were red from me rubbing instead of from the lipstick. Heather grumbled about it for a minute, but I guess she got over it pretty quick. Then, for whatever reason, I let Jenny put one of those little plastic choker necklaces on me that looked kinda like you'd gotten a tattoo all the way around.

“All you need now is a big, baggy plaid flannel shirt. You'll look like one of those girls that still follow grunge bands around the country.” Heather decided, tapping her chin with her pointer finger like she was in deep thought. “I'll see if Brad has one clean.”

“I'm not wearing flannel!” I whined, shaking my head. “It's too hot!”

“Besides.” Jenny put her hands on her hips and got real sassy. “I'm not letting her wear anything that little asshole touched.”

“Calm down.” Heather rolled her eyes and shook her head, like she was so tired of dealing with us she could barely stand it. “No flannel.”

Mama was pacing back and forth underneath the archway between the kitchen and the living room, the phone tucked against her shoulder and her arms crossed real tight over her chest.

“Oh my Lord.” she was saying, “Oh, Lordy mercy.”

As soon as she saw us, she told whoever she was talking to to hang on and held the phone away from her mouth.

“Gary's coming to pick you and Jenny up.” She told us, using the voice she saved for when I had the flu or a headache and she was trying to soothe me and make me feel better. “Sam's in the hospital.”

“She probably just wants to see if they'll give her pain pills again.” Jenny rolled her eyes and shook her head. “She was just fine this morning.”

“She had a little accident.” Mama said, giving me a sad smile before putting the phone back to her ear. “Alright, Lynn. Let me know if you need anything. I'll be down in the morning if she's still there.”

“What kind of accident?” Jenny asked, kinda shoving past me to look Mama in the face. “She didn't smoke a bunch of pot and fall off the garage again, did she?”

I tried real hard not to laugh because I remembered that happening. She was just sitting there on the roof and I was on the ground, telling her to come down. I was a little paranoid that she was gonna' fall, which she did, but mostly I was just hungry and wanted her to come eat cereal or something with me. She got to her feet and just sort of stepped onto thin air. The doctor at the emergency room said it was a miracle that she hadn't broken anything, but she just sprained her wrist when she tried to catch herself. The whole ride to the hospital, she was just crying and begging Lynn not to let them cut off her arm, like the big drama queen she was.

“No.” Mama shook her head, but didn't say anything else.

“Well, I wanna' go too.” Heather declared.

She sounded like a little girl all of a sudden and Mama sounded like she was talking to one, too.

“I don't know if that's the best idea.” She waved her arm so Heather would follow her into the kitchen. “She's not supposed to have lots of visitors and the girl's'll probably only be there for a minute.”

She gave up pretty quick and told me if she wasn't there when I got back, it meant that she and Mike had gone out without us and I told her that maybe we'd catch up with them because bowling had actually really started to sound like fun. I just wanted to make sure Sam was alright, and then we could just go on our merry little way. It wasn't that I wasn't still mad at her. But I still didn't like the idea of her being in the hospital. Or anybody. Except maybe Dennis. He could go die in a fire for all I cared.

When I got up into Gary's truck, he looked madder than hell and I started to wonder what was actually going on. By the way Mama looked and sounded when she'd told us the news, I was pretty sure Sam had done something stupid—tried to slit her wrists or swallowed a bunch of pain pills—but I would've thought that would make Gary sad. Or scared. Or at least a little bit worried. But he was just pissed.

“What'd she do now?” Jenny asked, squeezing into the space between me and the passenger side door.

Gary didn't say anything anybody could understand; he just grumbled under his breath, maybe something about stupid or idiot or asshole. I wasn't sure. After that, the ride to Logan Memorial was totally silent for the entire ten minutes it took to get there. The front entrance led into the emergency room area, where a lady that looked bored out of her mind told us how to get to where we were going. After walking down a couple of hallways, we got to where Lynn was standing with Polly, talking to a nurse in a bright purple set of scrubs with little panda bears all over them. That getup, added to the fluorescent lights, made my eyes burn.

“What'd she do?” Jenny and I asked at the exact same time, which made her laugh a little bit and I waited for her to say “Jinx, pinch, poke. You owe me a Coke.” like she usually did, but she didn't.

“She'll be alright.” Lynn said, looking at me. “Will you please go in and talk to her?”

“Yeah.” I nodded my head up and down.

“She's been asking about you for an hour.” She told me, sounding like she was probably sick of hearing my name.

The big, heavy door was propped open with a trash can and Sam was propped up in the bed, looking up at the television that was mounted on the wall. She had a white sheet and blanket over her legs and another blanket was tucked under her chin, covering up her chest and arms. Sam was always cold. Mama and I always joked that she was just like a chihuahua—skinny, cold, and a little bit crazy.

I watched whatever Nick at Night show she was watching for a minute before I even walked all the way in the room. When she saw me, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, doing that over and over a few times, and sniffled a little bit.

“I'm sorry.” Sam told me, shaking her head.

I plopped down in a little reclining chair next to her bed and asked “For what?”

“Everything, I guess.” She was still sniffling and reached from under the blanket to wipe her nose. “I'm a shit person. I don't even want to be around me anymore.”

Sam liked to talk really bad about herself when she wanted people to feel sorry for her. You could always tell it was for attention, though. She could cry on command and make it sound like she could go off the deep end at any minute. But she always took it a bit too far so whoever she was talking to, except me sometimes, knew she was full of shit. Every once in a while, when Lynn had had enough of the melodramatics, she'd say “And the Oscar goes to...!” and roll her eyes.

This time she sounded different, though. Her eyes were so red they were almost purple, like she'd been scratching at them and crying all day. She was congested and her throat sounded clogged, like she'd swallowed a golf ball or something. What bothered me most was that she was keeping her hands underneath the blankets. Sam was always moving her hands. She'd either play with her hair or drum her fingers on whatever surface she had nearby. She was the fidgeting-est girl on earth, Mama always said.

“Lemme see.” I nodded toward her lap.

Sam let out a whine that sounded like it hurt coming out of her throat, but she yanked the cover off her and lifted both hands for me to see. Both of her wrists were all bandaged up, clean as a whistle. I was guessing they'd had to stitch them up and I kinda wanted to see, but at the same time, I didn't. Just seeing the gauze made me feel achy deep in my belly, like I'd done something really bad and couldn't fix it and was gonna' be in a lot of trouble.

Except I hadn't done a thing.

“Why'd you do it?” I asked, swallowing hard and leaning back in the chair. I wanted to be far away from those wrists. I didn't even want to look at them, but they were the only thing I could look at. Like a really bad car wreck.

“I'm all alone.” She whispered and shoved her hands back under the blanket. “I have no friends. Everybody left me.”

“Nobody left you.” I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

“You did.” Sam sniffled, looking up at the ceiling like she was trying to keep her tears inside her eye sockets. “You're my only friend. You and Gary. And when you're mad at me, he's mad at me and I have nobody and I'm just really overwhelmed because I don't want to be alone.”

She was rambling and when she finally lowered her head, all the tears fell out and all of a sudden, her face was soaking wet.

“I'm sorry, Sam.” I told her, taking a deep breath and letting it out like I was in a Lamaze class or something. “You make me feel lonely sometimes too, though. Like when you drag me out to places and then leave me alone there to hang out with other people.”

She nodded her head and then shook it. “I know. That was awful. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” The words just kinda fell out of my mouth involuntarily and I realized it was because I meant them.

I was tired of being mad at her. And I knew she was tired of me being mad at her. I decided to change the subject because I didn't want either of us to be depressed anymore, even if it was just for a minute because I knew it wasn't that simple.

“When are they letting you out of here?” I asked, looking around the room.

“The doctor said I had to stay overnight because I need fluids and rest.” Sam said, lifting one corner of her mouth and shrugging her shoulders. “There's some kind of little air mattress thing with holes all over it under the sheet. It's comfy.”

I laughed a little bit, standing up.

“I'll let you get some sleep, then.” I told her, leaning over the side of the bed and kissing her on her forehead the way she did to me sometimes, like I was sick and she was trying to put me to sleep.

That made her smile and she grabbed my arm to make me give her a hug. It felt nice to be friends with Sam again. She always said that one thing she'd always wanted was to have a friend from kindergarten like all the other kids had when she moved to Russellville and started first grade at Chandlers. So I was the closest she had to that and I guessed she was closest I had, too because before I met her, I didn't really have any friends. There were kids I talked to in Alabama, but I didn't go to anybody's house and hang out in their room or go out and do stuff with them. Sam was my first real friend and I was glad to have her back, even if she was a big old melodramatic butt head.

Gary was leaning against the wall that faced Sam's room. He was bouncing, pushing away from the wall with his shoulder blades and then falling back, over and over. I knew he was probably feeling anxious, but he still just looked mad.

“Jobie.” Jenny called to me from a bench down the hall. She was talking on a phone that was on the wall above her head and covered the mouthpiece to talk to me. “I'm gonna' stay here.”

“Alright.” I said, getting a hug from Lynn. She hugged me for so long that I started to get too warm and had to pull away from her.

Gary walked ahead of me and started the truck before I could even open the door to get in.

“What's the matter with you?” I asked, buckling my seat belt quick because he was speeding out of the parking lot.

“Nothing.” He grumbled. “Where we going?”

“Where do you wanna' go?” I shrugged. “I thought we were going bowling.”

“Then we're going bowling.” He said. “Do we have to pick up what's-her-face?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Do you really wanna' go bowling? If you don't wanna' go bowling, we don't have to.”

“I don't give a shit.” He said, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

“Well, I don't wanna' go anywhere with you until you tell me why you're so pissy.” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest and letting out a huff like I was a cranky little princess.

“I'm pissy because I just had to drop everything I was doing to go to the emergency room for an idiot who can't go ten minutes without having a nervous breakdown!” He was yelling at the windshield. “I don't have time to deal with Sam's shit. She could've died and it was all just for attention!”

“I don't know.” I mumbled, shaking my head.

“I do.” He argued. “She's trying to make this your fault and it's not.”

“I know it's not my fault.” I lied.

He let out a big, loud breath and turned his head to look at me. “I'm sorry, baby.”

“It's alright.” I gave him a smile. “Do you feel better?”

“A little.” He said. “Bowling?”

I grinned at him, nodding my head.

It had been the weirdest day, but for whatever reason, I felt like things were getting back to normal. It hadn't been long since everything with Sam and I had gotten out of whack, but it felt like forever. I felt relieved, even if we ended up going right back to the way things had been where she called all the shots and I just followed her around like a puppy. Maybe that was easier. Whatever it was gonna' be, I was glad it was gonna' be something rather than nothing.