Georgie, All Along (6)

Bel braces a hand on the arm of her glider, giving me a smiling, self-deprecating eye roll at the way she has to heave herself upward a little. When she’s finally standing, she frowns down morosely at her empty milkshake cup, and I hand mine over automatically. The truth is, I only managed to drink about a quarter of it. The fact that I couldn’t pay for it has ruined the taste. It’s become a shame-shake.

I feel an embarrassing echo of that handsome stranger’s hand across the front of my overalls.

Bel takes a big, grateful sip and then says, “Okay, follow me.”

We move down the hallway toward the guest room, which Bel had shown off on the tour with great emphasis, seeing as how she’s still hoping I’ll change my mind about staying at my parents’ place instead of here. I’m about to tell her again that yes, I am still very impressed by the therapeutic mattress, but haven’t changed my mind—especially since Bel has told me on many occasions what pregnancy has done to her sex drive—when she stops in front of a door across the hall from the guest room. If Bel shows me a perfectly arranged linen closet that Mrs. Michaels would quadruple clap in praise for, I’ll probably cry.

“Don’t judge me,” she says, as she sets her hand on the doorknob, squeezing her eyes shut tight as she opens it.

“Haaaaaaa,” I breathe out at the sight that greets me, a small room absolutely packed with stuff.

“I’m getting to it!” she says, defensively. But already I’ve taken a step into what is basically a wide center aisle, flanked on either side by haphazard stacks: some cardboard boxes, some plastic bins, and—I desperately try not to pump a fist in victory—a few garbage bags.

“Well!” I say, grinning. “I don’t know what this has to do with Mrs. Michaels, but I am delighted.”

She scoffs and gently nudges me aside with her elbow, reaching for one of the plastic bins. It’s got a strip of masking tape stuck to the top, and I recognize her mom’s handwriting: Annabel, Teen Years.

I move closer to Bel, a clutch of sadness in my chest. Bel’s mom died two years ago—a brutal, aggressive cancer that took her within months of her diagnosis. Nadia had given me three weeks off to be in DC, where Bel’s mom spent her last days in a hospice facility.

“I’ve had all this stuff in storage since Mom,” she says, her voice brisk, but I hear the grief in it, and I tuck even closer so she can lean some of her weight against me. “But since we have all this space now . . .”

“Totally,” I say.

She takes a breath and sets her milkshake on another stack, moving to lift the lid on the bin.

“Wait,” I say, taking over. I shift the bin to the floor, then set another sturdy one in front of it for Bel to sit on. It definitely doesn’t look that comfortable, so I make a mental note as I crisscross myself onto the carpet that we’ll need to move before too long.

“Look at this,” she says, lifting the sweatshirt that’s folded on top and shaking it out. It’s dark green, our high school’s official color, and across the front in big white letters it says, HARRIS COUNTY LOGGERHEADS. I know without her having to turn it around that there’s a badly drawn turtle on the back. Somewhere I have this exact sweatshirt, which all of us got on the first day of our freshman year. At the time, it’d been a huge deal, a rite of passage—going to the county’s high school meant you weren’t just a Darentville kid anymore. You were in school with kids from Iverley, Blue Stone, Sott’s Mill. You’d made it to the big time.

Bel pulls it on over her head, mussing her ponytail and stretching it over her belly. “Still fits,” she says, and I obviously don’t argue. “Eeeeeee, there’s so much in here!”

Bel digs in excitedly, but I’m cautious, tense as I reach in. Of course I know that there’s mountains of good memories in here, relics of the fun Bel and I had during those years. But I’m too close to that scene in Nickel’s, the reminder that, separate from Bel, I was a disaster in high school—minor bad behavior, major bad grades, no ambition or plans for the future.

All the things you want to do, Nadia’s voice echoes, collapsing somehow with every teacher and school counselor who prodded me with questions about college, vocational school, maybe even the military.

I never could see myself doing any of it.

Thankfully, I get a reprieve when the first thing my hand closes around is a synthetic, faded white sash—Bel’s homecoming court souvenir from our senior year. Rough green glitter sticks to my hands as I lean across the bin and drop it over her head, laughing when she preens and smooths it against herself.

“I should’ve won,” she says, and I dig back in, wondering if somewhere in here is the consolation construction paper crown my mom and I made for her the next day. Instead I find a photo of us, still inside the frame the parents’ association sold at commencement—garish and thick, it’s got our graduation year across the top and a line of puff-painted loggerheads along the bottom.

We’re in our green robes, Bel’s honor cords swinging between us, our caps off, our arms around each other, our cheeks pressed together, and our smiles huge. We look happy, twinned in celebration. But if I look close, I can see something else in my eyes—a fear at the ending of this, an uncertainty.

The same look I’ve seen in the mirror for weeks.