Precious and Fragile Things (16 page)

D
anica is Gilly's best friend until their junior year of high school, when Danica's braces come off and she replaces her glasses with contact lenses. A perm, a tan, a few pounds lost and an inch in height had transformed her over the summer from a band geek into a hottie, and the boys have noticed. That would be fine, but Danica notices, too.

They've shared most everything over the years. Secrets, dreams. They'd practiced kissing their pillows during sleepovers at Danica's house, and she's the only person Gilly's ever told about her crush on their gym teacher, Mr. Grover, in seventh grade. Danica has a lot of brothers and sisters, but Gilly has none. Danica's her sister. Her best friend.

At first, Danica's new popularity with the opposite sex is sort of a boon to Gilly, who's had her share of giggling crushes and notes passed to her in study halls but never really had a boy like her. Not like her, like her, not the way she liked him. Now, walking the halls of school before the bell rang for homeroom, Gilly follows Danica and
the boys follow them both. Surely one or two of them will look Gilly's way when they see her friend is busy with the others.

And sure enough, one does.

Not the one Gilly likes. That's Bennett Longenecker, who looks like he just stepped out of one of those teen movies. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth, perfect smile. He likes Danica, of course, but he's nice enough to Gilly because he also has a perfect personality. Gilly swoons inside whenever he looks her way, which is just often enough to keep her pleasantly tingly all throughout the school day and sometimes even into the evening.

The boy who likes her has the unfortunate name of Reginald Gampey. He was named for his dad and his grandfather, and he goes by Reg…but it doesn't help. With a name like Reginald Gampey he's destined for thick glasses, an overbite and bad acne. Being a brainiac might've made up for it but he lacks even the smarts to be considered one of the class's top students.

And, he likes Gilly.

He manages to become a part of the little crowd of those who hang out before and after school. Danica and her admirers, Bennett, who seems to soak up all the adoration directed his way without really absorbing it. Gilly. Another girl, Marie. And Reg.

Things are bad at home again. They'd been okay for a while, but over the summer when Danica was growing breasts, Gilly'd been dealing with her mother's increasingly difficult behavior. Mom didn't want Gilly going to the pool or out with friends, to the movies, out late at night. She wanted to know where Gilly was all the time, to keep her from “trouble.” The only trouble Gilly had was hiding the fact that her home life was so shitty.

Danica knows something's up—she's been Gilly's best friend since grade school, after all. But things have changed. Looking back now, Gilly thinks there would've been distance between them without the boys and the new look. But back then Gilly doesn't notice or doesn't
want to see how Danica's eyes slide past her, or how Danica doesn't laugh at Gilly's old jokes, or how she mostly just ignores her whenever she can and makes up excuses about how she's too busy to hang out.

The night of the Homecoming dance that fall, the plan is to go as a group date. A lot of the kids from school are doing it rather than springing for limos and corsages. It probably was Danica's idea anyway, so she doesn't have to choose which one, single boy can take her. Reg had asked Gilly but with the group date thing in place she has a reason to say no.

Gilly's having a great time. She slow-dances with Bennet once and a couple other boys. Even Reg, though the way he gazes so longingly into her eyes unnerves her. The DJ plays all the best songs and afterward, the plan is to go out to the local diner to eat and stay out a whole hour after curfew.

“I don't think you should come,” Danica says. “Don't you have to get home to your…mom?”

“My dad's with her.”

Danica shrugs, so much said in that artless response. “I think you should find someone else to hang out with, Gilly.”

“Tonight?” Gilly asks, stunned.

Danica looks at her. Another shrug. “Just…all the time. I think you should find a new best friend.”

Then she goes off with the rest of their friends, leaving Gilly to stand with Reg, who offers to drive her home. She lets him, too. Lets him feel her up in the front seat, parked in front of her parents' house. Lets him French-kiss her.

She lets Reg think she likes him, until Monday at school when she tells him the same thing Danica had said to her. “I think you should find another girlfriend.”

Gilly never asked Danica what had prompted the change in their long friendship. She never had the courage. She played it off, pretended
it didn't matter, but for the rest of that year she watches Danica laugh and joke with everyone else but her. It's a rejection worse than any from a boy could ever have been.

Gilly chooses her friends very carefully after that.

“F
uck my life!” Todd hissed and stuck his fingers in his mouth as he knelt by the stove to poke at the logs. “Burned myself.”

Gilly looked up from the magazine crossword puzzle she was working on. “Do you have to drop the f-bomb with everything you say?”

Todd looked up from the fire and dusted off his hands on the thighs of his already dirty jeans. He'd been wearing the same pair for the past few days. Gilly had a few unworn shirts from the stash he'd bought her and had done some laundry in the bathtub, but Todd was apparently far less concerned with recycling his clothes. His forehead furrowed.

“Huh?”

“You curse all the time.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” Gilly said patiently. “Almost every sentence you're saying
fuck
or
shit
or something like that.”

Todd shrugged. “So?”

“Well…can't you think of a better way to express yourself?” Gilly prompted. “You know, Todd, words don't have to be big to be effective.”

“No.” He held out his forefinger and thumb a scant inch apart. “Sometimes they're really tiny and they work great. Like, for instance,
fuck
.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. Todd stood. He put his hands on his hips, looking down at her.

“You've said it,” he told her. “I heard you.”

“Well, yes, I've said it, but I don't say it all the time.”

“Maybe you should say it more.” He grinned. “Fuck! Say it. It feels really good. Besides, the more you say it, the less scary it is. Go on.”

“I'm not scared of saying it. I just choose to express myself with different word choices.” God, she sounded prissy even to herself.

“Ooh.” Todd fluttered his fingers over his heart. “Fancy.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, but not in anger. “The more you say it, the less effective it actually becomes. You should try it. Using something else.”

“What do you want me to stay instead?”

“Fudge?”

Todd laughed aloud. “Oh, right. That's so cool. ‘Hey baby, wanna fudge?' Wow, I bet I'd get laid so much my dick would fall off.”

“Gross!”

“Slow your roll, Gilly, jeez. You act like you never heard a dude talk about his dick before. And don't tell me you haven't, because we all do it.”

Seth had, indeed, talked about his “junk” on more than one
occasion, but Gilly wasn't going to talk about that with Todd. “Use whatever words you want. I'm just saying that society will look at you less askance if you clean up your mouth.”

As soon as she said it, Todd's grin faded. “Yeah. Because society really gives a fuck about my mouth.”

“You never know,” Gilly said, “what makes an impression.”

Todd pointed at his chest. “See this? See me, standing right here in front of you?”

“You're hard to miss since you are standing right there,” she said.

“Yeah, well, let me tell you something. I could put on a suit and tie and slick my hair back and shave, and I'm still always going to be a guy society looks upon like an ass can'ts, whatever the fuck that is.”

“
Askance
. It's like…” She demonstrated with her expression.

“Scared?”

“No. Not… More like this.” She tried again, raising her brows and parting her lips.

He laughed. “Yeah. Scared. Like I might mug you.”

“Well…” She looked him up and down but didn't finish the thought.

Todd's smile faded. He stalked to the window and looked out, silent for a few minutes. “It's snowing again.”

“Again?”

He pointed out the window. “Yeah.”

Beyond the glass, she could see nothing but white. Gilly turned her attention back to the puzzle and shrugged. She needed an eleven-letter word for a noun meaning “anything abominable; anything greatly disliked or abhorred” and “mother-in-law” didn't fit. She knew because she'd tried.
She tapped the pencil, worn to a soft-nosed nub, against her chin. “Nothing we can do about it.”

Todd paced a little bit in front of the stove, stopping every now and then to peer out the window again. He discovered a ball in some drawer, along with a suction-cupped basketball hoop. He took shot after shot, making most of them but occasionally needing to dive after the ball as it bounced wildly along the floor or rolled under the couch where she was sitting.

Gilly forced herself to concentrate on the crossword puzzle, though Todd's constant motion agitated her. The third time she had to lift her feet so he could get beneath them, she fixed him with a glare Todd didn't seem to notice. Cheek pressed to the worn carpet, one long arm snaking under the couch to grab the ball, his ass in the air, he didn't look so threatening. In fact, she thought suddenly, catching sight of the knife in the sheath on his belt, his face was at just the right place to kick.

“Gotcha.” Todd got up, ball in hand, and the moment, such as it was, passed.

She filled in another few words and sighed. Now would've been a good time for the use of the word she'd told Todd to find a substitute for. Todd, tossing the ball back and forth from hand to hand, looked down at the paper.

“Abomination,” he said.

“What?”

“Abomination.” There was a pause as he waited, mouth quirked, for her to reply, but he spoke before she did. “Even has more than four letters.”

Gilly filled in the letters carefully. “Abomination.”

It was sort of the same thing as mother-in-law.

She hated crossword puzzles, normally. She wasn't good
at figuring out definitions from vague clues and vocabulary had never been her strongest talent. She knew what words meant when she read them, but thinking of them when she needed to use them often left her grasping. Still, it was better than sitting staring at the wall, which is what she'd have been reduced to, otherwise.

Or, she thought, biting the familiar spot to keep from growling, she could pace up and down like a caged animal and totally annoy everyone else in the room. Todd had lost interest in the makeshift basketball game and now wandered from window to window, looking out and muttering. That was bad enough, but when he plopped onto the couch beside her and put his feet on the coffee table, then started jiggling them so the entire couch shook, Gilly'd had enough.

“Todd!”

He jumped, looking guilty, and thumped his feet to the floor. “Sorry.”

Gilly closed the magazine with a sigh. “Can't you sit still? It's like you're being electrocuted.”

Todd frowned and shrugged. “I'm fucking bored as fuck. What do you want me to do?”

She sighed again. “Take a nap. Sew that hole in your shirt. Better yet, wash the shirt, it's disgusting.”

Todd looked down at the front of it and ran his fingertips over the mother-of-pearl snap buttons. “I like this shirt.”

“Obviously, since you've worn it for the past three days.”

“Aw, Gilly,” Todd said with a grin. “You noticed.”

She sighed. “Just…do something that doesn't involve you annoying me!”

“Is there anything that wouldn't annoy you?” Todd got up from the couch. He shifted on his feet, looking for all the world like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse. Everything
about him reminded her of some feral creature. He went to the window again. “I'm so fudging bored!”

Gilly fixed him with an impatient stare. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“You like Monopoly?”

Actually, she loved the game, but hadn't played for years. A house with small children was no place for a game with a myriad of tiny pieces. Todd went to the large armoire in the corner and pulled out the familiar box.

“We could play,” he said.

“I'm busy.”

The idea was tempting. She was more than a bit bored herself, but Gilly forced her attention back to the magazine. She couldn't allow herself to relax with him or she'd be lost, and yet each passing moment in his company made it harder and harder to hold him at a distance. Not when he asked her to do innocent things like play Monopoly.

“Your head hurting again?”

She shook her head. Her fingers fluttered on the magazine's slick pages. Todd sat down across from her and pulled the magazine from her hands.

“Hey!”

“Play with me, Gilly.”

“No.”

He sighed. “Shit.”

Gilly snatched back the crumpled pages and turned her face from him. “Leave me alone, Todd.”

“Just one game. C'mon. I'll let you pick whatever piece you want. Top hat, race car, thimble, whatever. Hell, you can even roll first.”

“I said no!” The words spit from her mouth like bullets from a gun.

He recoiled, his mouth twisting. A spark that didn't look like anger glimmered in his eyes, but Gilly didn't flinch. She lifted her chin, daring him to protest.

“Christ, you're a bitch,” he said.

Gilly put the magazine on the coffee table between them and stood up, hands on her hips. “Why do men always say that when they don't get what they want?”

Her head spun a little at the speed of her retreat, but she managed to walk away with some semblance of dignity. That he was right didn't bother her. He'd called her a growling dog, too. If being a bitch meant she could survive this ordeal, then she'd be one.

Todd's voice stopped her at the foot of the stairs. “Is that what your husband calls you?”

She stiffened. “Seth has never called me a bitch.”

“Not to your face,” Todd muttered.

Gilly bit back a retort. There'd been days when she knew her frustration spilled out in sharp words, her tongue a keener weapon than any knife. She knew she'd send her husband from her with his pride smarting, his love for her the only reason he'd kept his own replies civil. She knew it when it happened and had felt helpless to stop it, and she knew it now.

She did with Todd what she'd so often felt incapable of doing with Seth—she held her tongue. Gilly went up the stairs and changed into her nightclothes: thick socks, heavy sweatpants, the flannel nightgown she hated but wore because it kept her warm. She got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Daylight still filtered through the window, but through the densely falling snow the light was diffuse enough to ignore. She closed her eyes and waited for him to come and demand she get out of bed, but he didn't.

Much later, when night had fallen, she woke to the sound
of Todd's boots on the stairs. For once, she'd slept without dreaming. Within minutes the light he'd brought with him went out and they lay in the dark again. Together but separated by more than just the low half-wall. After a time, she heard his soft, slow breathing, and knew he slept.

She desperately had to pee. Gilly blinked against the dark. Since she'd gone to bed so early, she hadn't brought a light. She pressed her thighs together, but the dull, cramping ache in her bladder meant there was no way she'd be able to make it until morning.

She swung her legs out of bed and shivered instantly. Without constant stoking, the woodstove quickly stopped heating the cabin. The shivering didn't help her need to pee, and she took a few deep breaths to convince her body she was going to make it to the bathroom without embarrassing herself.

Darkness would make the trip hazardous, and Gilly had a vision of herself tripping over something. Falling and wetting herself at the same time. Once upon a time she'd been able to go without bathroom breaks for hours, but not since having babies. She'd almost embarrassed herself enough times to know better than to tempt fate. Only the dimmest glimmer of light shone in through the windows on either end of the room, not enough to see by. She'd have to make it by memory.

Think about it. Picture the room in your mind. You can find your way to the stairs, no problem. Just take one step at a time.

Gilly walked with her hands held out like a sleepwalker. Instead of lifting her feet high, she slid them along the floor, shuffling to prevent herself from tripping. Her thighs bumped the edge of the dresser and her hands felt empty space in front of her. She shuffled forward.

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, not enough to see anything clearly but enough to let her know approximately
where she was going. From the opening in the partition, there was a clear space between the rows of beds all the way to the steep stairwell. If she could make it all the way there without falling down them, she'd do all right.

Once at the stairs, Gilly gripped the railing hard. Step by step. Downstairs a soft red glow from the stove's vents gave her some meager light, but she used the wall to guide her to the bathroom where she sat with an audible sigh.

On the way back through the living room, she paused. Her house was never this quiet. There was always the ambient hum of appliances, the sound of occasional traffic and the dog, who could never be content to simply sleep but had to yip and pant and scrabble in constant doggie dreams. This cabin was silent, not even any wind outside blowing snow against the walls.

Yet this felt familiar, being awake while everyone else slept. She had spent many nights wandering the house in the dark, unable to sleep. Sometimes because she was simply waiting to be woken, sometimes because of an overwhelming need to check on everything one last time. Sometimes because no matter how exhausted she was, she couldn't go to bed until toys that would simply be dumped again in the morning had been put away, or that last load of laundry tossed in the washer. The dishes soaking in the sink scrubbed and dried and put away so she didn't have to face them in the morning.

Gilly always felt like the only member of her household who cared if any of those tasks were completed. It didn't stop her, though. Those were things she could control, make happen. Now she tipped her face to the ceiling. This nighttime wandering felt familiar, but she couldn't let herself forget that it wasn't.