Nice Girls(3)

I learned about the invention of the dishwasher, the chopstick, the radio, and even the history of the wheelie office chair. I listened as one podcaster complained about how one of her ex-boyfriends was, “like, definitely gay.” By the time they broke up, he’d given her chlamydia. The other podcaster laughed.

At one point, I dozed off. When Dad tapped me on the shoulder, I was slumped against the passenger’s-side window, a small stream of drool sliding down my chin. The car display said it was just a little past four in the afternoon.

“We’re home,” Dad said, his eyes glued to the road.

We’d already passed Liberty Lake. We were in the northwestern region of the city, now entering our subdivision of homes, the Castles of Cordoba. The green wooden sign at the entrance to the neighborhood had been replaced—we’d upgraded to a large block of stone that sat on the street divider, etched in dark medieval script.

Some of the homes in the area had been renovated, but they all looked the same: each house two stories high with sprawling yard space, a basement, and a deck. There were still the same broad fences that wrapped around each property, protecting the pools and the patio areas inside. Still the same elm, basswood, and pine trees that dotted the area.

A line of kids biked past us on the sidewalk—they were heading toward the park tucked away in the neighborhood. Their mother was behind them, holding a leash in one hand. Their dog, a fluffy Samoyed mix, watched us as we drove by. I nearly expected to see Mormon missionaries behind them, proselytizing two by two.

It seemed like nothing had changed in the past three years. The neighborhood was still bland and sleepy and steady, full of families with even steadier lives. The Castles of Cordoba was not as uppity as some of the other neighborhoods, but the stench of money was still here. We were middle class and unrepentant.

Dad circled us around the cul-de-sac, our house standing near the exit. Back in high school I’d always been anxious about backing out of the driveway—I imagined someone rear-ending me as they turned the corner.

To the right of our house, a little boy was dribbling a basketball in one hand, holding a candy ring in the other. As we pulled into the driveway the boy watched us, sucking on his candy. I looked him straight in the eyes, waiting for him to blink. But he raced away. When I’d last seen the neighbor’s kid, he was waddling in diapers.

Dad had updated the house. He’d repaired the siding, so you could no longer see the hail damage that had accumulated over the years. The hedges in front had been trimmed, the lawn mowed. Dad had also replaced our entire asphalt driveway with white concrete. He had mentioned it over a year ago—one of the few times he’d sounded genuinely excited about something. It looked nice enough.

In an hour, Dad and I had moved everything from the cargo van to my bedroom. We piled the black garbage bags and suitcase around my bed. They looked eerie against the pale purple walls. In the space next to the closet, Dad dumped the fragments of my desk and my chair.

I sat there on the bed, looking at the scattered pieces of my life.

“You’ll get this sorted,” said Dad as he shut the door.

Now that he’d successfully moved me back home, Dad was at ease again. He normally preferred our conversations to revolve around needs—what food I wanted to eat, where I wanted to go, how much money I had to “borrow.” In return, I spared him details about my personal life.

Through the window, I could see some of the Halloween lights glowing orange down the street. A man was nailing a plastic skeleton to a tree. A mechanical witch stood hunched behind him, her broomstick pointing menacingly at the road. The neighborhood was quiet, sleepy. It felt like I’d never left. I was a sullen teenager again, hiding in my room from the rest of the world, daydreaming about better days.

Except instead of clinging onto those dreams, I had lost them completely.



An hour passed. Then another. I lay in bed, drifting in a half sleep. When it got dark, I finally shuffled downstairs. I passed by Dad’s room. The door was closed, but I could hear the roar of college football on his TV.

On the kitchen table, he’d left a stack of job applications. Ten in total, for local coffee shops and restaurants. Customer service work, where the odds of running into a familiar face were high.

I was supposed to be a thousand miles away at school. But to be home in the middle of fall semester, working in retail? It looked suspicious. People would talk. They would know that something had happened, and they would gloat to themselves that my life had ended up as shitty as their own.

Worse, I would run into someone like Olivia Willand. She’d walk in with her blond hair and perfect smile, and she would take one look at me behind the counter and smirk. I would see the contempt in her eyes. She’d tell me that I hadn’t changed at all, and I would know that she was right—I was the same fat, forgettable Mary from childhood.

My face was burning. I wanted to hide, not work.

But I could hear Dad’s voice again over the phone, how gruff he got when I told him I’d been expelled. He’d been furious, crushed. I hadn’t come home for years because of school—my one crowning achievement in life—and I’d screwed it up.

I made a cup of tea and looked through the applications, a knot in my stomach. The longer I stared at the forms, the more I stopped focusing on the words. I couldn’t fill out a single one. A few days ago, I was reading Derrida for a thesis—now I could barely write my name.