Authors: Shay Ray Stevens
After a while, Stefia looked up from her swing at me with a
wobbly smile—mostly out of obligation, I think.
“I’m assuming since you’re sitting here and haven’t said
anything,” she started, “that it’s because you heard the news and you don’t
know what to say.”
“That would be a correct assumption,” I said.
Two kids bolted from under the pine trees and zig-zagged
across the short clipped grass in an impromptu game of tag. Their tennis shoes
stomped at the ground and their giggles floated on the breeze.
Stefia and I had done that so many times.
“You really don’t have to say anything. It’s okay.”
“Maybe,” I started thoughtfully, “I should have googled
‘the right thing to say when your friends’ parents split’ before I came over
here.”
“Nah,” she said, picking up her feet and letting the swing
move. “Google probably would have been wrong.”
“Google is never wrong,” I said. “Ever.”
I picked up my feet and tried to swing but since I was too
tall and too heavy, I didn’t even move. Stefia laughed.
“Hey,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Your parents. Them breaking up. The divorce…or whatever.
I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she said, pumping her legs
and swinging higher. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know…but…”
“Wait,” she cut me off. “I think you actually
did
Google
to find out the correct response, and
I’m sorry
is what Google said.”
I laughed.
“Google is totally lame,” she said. “Totally. It doesn’t
even make sense. Why does someone say they are sorry for something they didn’t
have anything to do with? You can’t apologize for something that isn’t your
fault.”
“Hey, we could Google why people say sorry…”
“We could.”
She dragged her feet to stop her swing, kicking up sand and
covering her purple toenails with a layer of dust.
“Listen,” I said, not looking at her. “I don’t want to get
weird or anything, but you know…if you ever want to talk, and your girl friends
are all busy or something…”
“Elliot?”
“What?
“I thought you didn’t want to make this weird…”
“Oh. Was it weird?”
She smirked.
“A little.”
“Well, I just…you know, wanted you to know if you ever…”
“I get it, Elliot. Thanks.”
She grabbed on to the chains and lifted herself from the
swing. She walked away from me, slowly, kicking at the sand and tiny pebbles
that settled around the playground equipment.
“Where you going?” I asked.
“I’m gonna go to the pine trees,” she said. “I think I’m
just gonna hide out for a while. Know what I mean?”
“Sure.”
She turned and walked towards the tree line that seemed to
stand as a picture frame around the entire park. She headed for the north
corner, the thickest and darkest part of the pine trees.
“Hey!” I called to her.
“What?” she answered without turning around.
“You…want some company?”
She stopped walking. She looked up at the sky and I could
see her shoulders rise and then fall in what must have been a huge sigh.
She didn’t answer me but she also didn’t start walking so I
got out of the stupid miniature swing I was still sitting in and jogged up
behind her.
“Hey. I asked if you wanted some company.”
I put my hand on her shoulder and she turned around to look
at me.
She was crying.
“Oh, god. Stefia, I’m sorry…”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t
remember a time in my life that didn’t include Stefia, and yet I couldn’t
remember a time she’d ever cried in front of me.
“Listen,” I said. “It’s going to be okay… it’s going to be
fine…”
“Shut up,” she said. “Don’t say anything.”
“Okay.”
“Like, anything. Just don’t talk.”
“Okay.”
She glared at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Just come sit with me in the trees.”
“What?”
“Just come sit with me,” she said slowly, “and don’t talk.”
I almost said okay, but then I remembered, and I just
nodded.
She sniffled and fixed her eyes on me. Then she turned back
towards the forest and I followed her into the cover of pine trees.
I wish I could look back on that day and remember it as
being full of comfort. I wish I could say that it was the day I knew I’d had
some part in helping Stefia move forward, but that’s really not the case.
You see, I look at that day as the beginning of the end.
**
At first when I heard someone was opening a theater just
outside Granite Ledge, I thought it was a joke. Who in the world would open a
theater in a community made of drunks and farmers? Who is going to pay money to
watch people parade around on stage in costume?
And why in the world would Stefia want anything to do with
it?
But that theater took off like no one would have ever
imagined. Suddenly there was culture in Granite Ledge, propelled forward by a
gussied up Stefia who paraded herself around and poured herself out to her pile
of adoring fans.
The first play she was in, I thought okay, whatever. It’s
something for her to do. Something to distract her from the mess with her
parents. But as time went on, it almost seemed as though the theater was a
distraction from real life.
Or, from like…fishing with her friend.
Or hanging out at the park.
Or getting ice cream at Beidermanns.
Or just sitting around laughing about stupid cat videos on
YouTube.
There was never any time for anything but the theater.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. People thought she was amazing.
She captivated the town in a string of performances that were worthy of a small
town Tony. But when I watched her in a show, I just saw Stefia reading lines.
“Why do you care?” mom asked me one Sunday morning. We sat
at the table eating pancakes before we all went fishing at Red Lake.
“Because it seems like she’s pretending.”
“Well, it is acting.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, and forked three pancakes
off the platter in the center of the table.
Why didn’t anyone understand what I was saying?
By the third show, over a year from when we hid out in the
pine trees, she was a completely different person.
“It’s like now she’s a whole other story,” I complained to
my dad one evening while watching my youngest brother get pummeled in his
homecoming game. “She’s like a character from a book that she never would have
thought of reading before.”
“Son, if you haven’t figured out by now that girls—women—are
weird, then you’re slower than I thought.” He playfully punched at my shoulder
and looked amused.
“I don’t think this is just her being a weird girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. She’s not the Stefia I used
to know.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “She’s growing up. You’re growing
up. People change as they grow.”
I shook my head.
“I just think there is something going on. She’s just so…I
don’t know, antithetic.”
“That’s a five dollar word, son,” he said, sipping from the
straw in his soda. “You use those words around her? Maybe that’s why she seems
different. She doesn’t understand what the hell you’re saying…”
“Dad, stop. You know what I mean. She’s like, night and day
different. I can’t even talk to her…”
“Then don’t.”
“What?”
He set his soda down, looked out onto the field for Mitch,
and then popped his fist up in the air in some father-son moment of
encouragement.
“Listen, son. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that
you can’t change the mind of a person who doesn’t want to be changed. She’s
going through some stuff right now, sure. But you can only do so much to help
her. And then…well, you just…”
“Give up?”
“No, don’t give up. Just, I don’t know…keep an eye out for
her, but don’t get wrapped up in the mess. If she needs you, she knows where to
find you. She’ll come around.”
**
I’d kinda forgotten about Stefia by the time our senior
year started.
Okay, that’s not the truth, but that’s what I tried to
convince myself and everyone else of. I failed miserably because, well, you
know when you just miss someone and you just need to see them? I’d stop by
Stefia’s locker at school a couple times a month to make small talk. I’d show
up at the coffee shop every so often and order a latte just to see how she was.
She was always distant; some stiff and unconcerned version of Stefia that
Stefia would have hated if she’d seen it in the mirror.
Shortly after our senior year began, my mom announced she’d
been diagnosed with a
touch
of cancer. The doctors said things like
found
it early
and
treatable
and
operation
and
full recovery
but my brain spun in dramatic circles around the less positive and completely
possible outcome. And as I contemplated life without my mother, I knew there
was only one person I could talk to who would even remotely understand life
without a mother, and suddenly I needed to talk to Stefia. I asked around
school the next day and found out she’d be at theater that night for final
dress rehearsal.
I knew dress rehearsals went late, but I was a patient
person. I casually strolled through her neighborhood about 11 pm, listening to
the late night noises of small town Minnesota, waiting for her to get home so I
could talk about my mom.
“Why don’t you just text her?” Mitch had asked me earlier
that evening.
“She never answers when I do.”
“And you haven’t taken that as a sign yet?”
“Shut up.”
“Listen,” Mitch said. “I get it. You used to hang out and
play pirates and build forts, but we aren’t kids anymore. How long are you
going to waste your time with her?”
I had shaken my head when he said that, and I shook my head
again as I walked to get rid of the conversation. I was not wasting my time.
Something in my gut told me so.
An old car rolled quietly down the road and pulled into the
driveway directly across from Stefia’s house. It pulled under the security
light of the garage, revealing a nice old Cutlass from the early 70s. Olive
green or maybe some weird greenish yellow, it was hard to tell in the
fluorescent of the bulb on the garage.
And then I saw Stefia get out of the passenger side of the
car. But she didn’t walk across the street to her own house. She shut her car
door, giggled something I couldn’t quite hear, and followed the driver to the
front door of the house.
The driver fumbled in his pocket for something, presumably
keys to unlock the door, which seemed to take much longer than it should have.
As I watched them, something just seemed…off. Not right.
It’s just that she was standing so close to him, you know?
The boundaries that should have been there were sketchy. That bubble of
personal space that everyone has…was completely missing from the both of them.
He finally got the door open and made a sweeping gesture in
front of him to signify he was a gentleman and she should go first. She walked
ahead of him and I could have sworn I saw his hand brush her ass as she passed.
But it couldn’t be. Because…
Let’s get one thing straight. I knew that Stefia wasn’t
into me. I wasn’t into her like that, either. Honestly. So what I felt that
night wasn’t jealousy over her losing her personal bubble of space with some
guy. No. It was disgust—because the guy she’d lost her personal space with
looked old enough to be her father.
Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge. I needed to follow
her.
Before I knew it, I’d crept across the street, ducked
behind the hedge that lined his driveway, and was sitting between his trashcan
and a giant hose reel in front of his garage. I couldn’t believe I was going to
spy on her. What if she found out? And what was I thinking I would find,
anyway?
I was hoping I didn’t find anything. I was hoping I was wrong.
It took me a full five minutes to get the courage to stand
up from my hiding spot. Then I slinked to a sidewalk between the house and
garage, hoping there were no motion detector lights waiting to reveal my
whereabouts. It took another three minutes for me to listen in an attempt to
figure out where they were in the house. I only occasionally heard voices and
couldn’t make out any of the muffled words.