Lauren Blakely - Every Second With You

I’m in Central Park at the playground, and the sun is baking my shoulders. Sweat drips down my tank top so I tug it away from me, but the relief is temporary. The sky is in a punishing mood, lashing the city with brutal heat.

“But that’s not what we decided earlier. Don’t you remember?”

The mom has claws in her voice, but I bet the person on the other end is just as pissed off. I bet they go round and round like this every day, fists raised, two boxers in a ring. Jab, jab, hit, hit.

“Higher. Push me higher,” the kid shouts.

The mom ignores the request.

I drop my head into my hands, and my forehead is slick against my damp palms.

This could be my life. Not the playground, because I don’t mind that. Not even kids, because I guess they’re fine, all things considered.

But fighting with Trey.

Arguing, over who’s doing what.

Getting annoyed.

Rolling my eyes.

Not loving, not caring, not cherishing the other person.

Look what happened to my parents when they had me. Dad cheated, they split, and now he’s so far gone I don’t know where he is.

Look at Trey. The babies his parents lost decimated their family.

That could happen to us.

I can’t stand the thought of us being ripped apart. I finally righted the sinking ship of my life, and now it’s capsized again, with one stupid mistake. My phone rings, and it’s probably Trey, so I grab it from the pocket of my jean skirt, sliding my finger across the screen.

“Hello,” I mumble into the phone. I must be a sight. Hanging out at the playground, hunched over, and sweaty.

“Darling.”

My skin crawls. I swear there are fire ants all over me hearing her voice. The sound I’ve avoided since she tried to buy me back.

“Yes,” I say, stripping my voice to its bare necessities. “What is it?”

“Your registration form for the fall semester arrived,” she tells me. My mom used to pay for my school, so she received all my forms. She doesn’t pay for college anymore, but the university hasn’t quite gotten its records updated.

“Just put it in the mail, please,” I say, but my throat hitches, and I can feel tears pricking the back of my eyes. Great. I’m barely pregnant, and I’m already hormonal. This is going to be a fucking fiesta. But the one thing I won’t do is let her hear me cry. I suck back the tears.

“I think it would be easier if you stopped by to pick it up.”

I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “No. Just mail it to me.”

“It’s overdue, Harley. You need to turn it in.”

“Then I’ll go to the school and pick up a new form.”

“Well, darling. It’s Friday, and it’s due at the end of the day, so perhaps it would just be easier if you stopped by to pick it up. You can even fax it in from here.”

I breathe out, hard. I don’t have any fight in me right now. I don’t need to be pregnant and kicked out of school. “Fine. I’m at the park. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I stand up, and my stomach roils for a moment, and I’m sure I’m going to yak again. I clasp my hand over my mouth, but the feeling subsides quickly, and I walk away.

“Let’s go. Your dad is in charge of you now,” the mom says sharply to her kid.

My god, parents suck.

I’m going to suck so fucking soon.

My plan was to meet her at the door, hold out my hand and take the form. But then I had to pee, so mother nature won. Now I’m washing my hands in the hallway bathroom, and then I dry them on a soft, and surely expensive, lemon yellow hand towel.

When I return to the living room my mother waits for me, perched on the edge of her royal blue couch. Her eyes are red, like she hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s usually so sure of herself, but she’s clicking and unclicking the band on her watch, a strange little tic that tells me she’s not the Barb Coleman who conquers the world right now.

Still, I want to rip that nervous look off her face because I hate all that she did, all that she didn’t do. But then there’s a primordial part of me that longs for what we never had. That wishes I could drop down on the couch next to her, lay my head in her lap, and tell her that my life is about to change irrevocably. What should I do, Mom? She’d smooth my hair, offer some wisdom, and tell me she’d help me through it. That she’d be there, every step of the way.

“Can I have the form now?”

“Of course,” she says, reaching for it on the table and handing it to me. I grab a pen, spread out the form on a paperback from my purse, using it as a hard surface as I fill in the boxes while standing. I don’t want to sit down. That would imply I’m comfortable here. I’m not, and I never will be.

“Harley?”

“Yes?” I ask, glancing up from the boxes and blue ink.

Hope sneaks into her eyes, and nerves steal into her voice. “I’d like to try again.”

I shake my head, return to the form. “Mom. We’ve been there. I told you there’s no starting over.”

“I know. You did.” Click of the watchband. Unclick. Metal against metal. Like her and me. “And I’ve thought long and hard about what you said. And I’ve made a grave mistake.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, keeping my guard up as I finish filling in the last few boxes.

She sighs, and then clasps her hands together. “You were right,” she says, her lower lip quivering slightly. Barb Coleman is rattled. Call the presses. “You said I should have confronted Miranda about what she did to you. About the blackmail.”

“Yeah. You should have,” I say, jutting my chin out, reminding her of how she dismissed me so easily.

She nods several times. “I should have. I own up to that, Harley. I do. And I want to confront her now. To do everything I can to stop her from publishing that—” She stops, and it’s as if she can’t finish the sentence. She’s reached the part in her bizarre act of contrition that she can no longer stomach. “–that book.”

But I have no problem saying the name. “Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

She winces, her nose crinkling. “Yes. That one.”

“So, you’re going to do what? An article on how she blackmailed a former call girl? Expose her?”

“What would you like me to do, darling? What would make you happy?”

Erasing one of those two pink lines would make me happy. We’re talking erupt into a tap-dancing, heel-clicking fool kind of delight. But while I used to care deeply about hiding her secrets and closeting all of my own, this book isn’t important anymore.

“You know would what would make me happy, Barb?”

She straightens her spine, sits up taller, a puppy dog wagging its tail for a treat. “What would make you happy, darling? Anything. Name it.”

“I would like to use your fax machine and send this in.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders fall, but she gestures to her office, and I head into it. I position the paper in the fax machine to send, but the light is flashing red. It needs ink. Typical. The woman can expose wrongdoings of any high-ranking public official, but god forbid she actually maintain the technology in her office.

I grab some toner from the cabinet, open the machine, remove the used toner, drop the old toner into the recycling box, and slide in the new one. I set the box on her desk, next to her laptop, but the box knocks the corner of the computer askew, exposing a vintage card the color of eggshell.

I quirk my eyebrows. It looks like a birthday card. My mom hasn’t had a birthday recently. But I have.

I don’t think twice about snooping. I want to know why there’s a card hidden under her laptop. I grab it, open it, and gasp when I see my name on the inside. Then I cover my mouth so I don’t make a sound as my eyes roam the words.

There’s no envelope. No return address. But this is a card from my grandparents, who had promised to send me a birthday card every year.

Who never did.

Who always did?

My hands shake as I slip the card inside my purse, tucking it into the inside pocket. I check it once, twice, three times, and then zip it up. I slide the form through the fax machine, tapping my foot, urging it along, waiting for the sent notice. Once it’s there I rip it out, leave my mom’s office, and nearly run for the door.

“Thanks for the fax machine,” I say.

“Darling, do you want to talk more about next steps? How I can make this right for you? Can I take you out to dinner? Chat over sushi?”

Her voice is static, a late-night radio background blur to the noise and chatter of the last twenty-four hours.

“Another time,” I say, and leave her behind.

Harley

The first words on the card are like a headline, in big, thick letters: The Stories We Promised to Tell You.

Then, under them:

And the city girl returned to the sand, and the sea, where the sun warmed her shoulders and the sky rained silver and gold sparkles . . .

And that’s all. It’s signed Nan and Pop.

I read the words again on the muggy subway platform, waiting for the downtown train. I read it on the subway car as it slaloms through underground New York, its lights flickering once around a bend, blasting us with darkness for a few seconds. I read it once more as I walk the few blocks to my apartment, weaving in and out of the early evening crowds who are returning home from work, their earbuds or their phones keeping them company.

The card is odd, too, on some sort of vintage letterpress paper, with a raised drawing of a red aardvark in the sand. Something you don’t find in the Hallmark section of Duane Reade, that’s for sure.