Harder (Caroline and West) Read online

  It’s stupid, unhelpful, but Jesus, what’s helpful? I can’t make it right.

  I rock her, wipe her face dry, murmur nonsense until she starts to calm.

  We sit in her dark room. The snow’s falling outside. In the hush, the quiet, I remember all the worst times.

  The time my dad hit my new kitten with his car, studied the limp body by my side, and booted it underneath the trailer next door.

  The time I stood up to him and he knocked me down with a lazy fist and kicked me in the stomach so hard, I shit blood for days.

  The night I got arrested out of the bakery after I found out my mom had taken him back.

  The day I left Caroline at the airport in Des Moines.

  The dead zone of time after the funeral when I tried to burn my life down around me so I wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore, because I’d had enough. I was fucking done.

  Frankie’s worst time is worse than any of mine, and I can’t fix it.

  All I can do is this.

  “It’s not your fault.” I whisper it into her hair, behind her ear. Her head is smooth and sleek under my hand, her body small, a curve against my stomach that reminds me of that kitten on my lap, soft and warm and innocent for those few hours I had it. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s them, Franks. It’s them.”

  She presses her nose into my chest, clutching my shirt. “I don’t want to live at Bo’s.”

  “You don’t have to. You can stay with me.”

  “Mom says you want to be alone with Caroline.”

  “I want you with me. You’re my girl. Okay?”

  She’s quiet.

  “I love you, Franks. I’ve loved you all your life, and I’m always gonna love you. And the fact that I love Caroline, too, doesn’t take anything away from you. It just means I want her with me and you with me, both. It’ll always be like that. You understand?”

  I can feel her nod against my chest.

  “I’ve been thinking since Christmas that you wanted to go back to Silt and I was gonna have to talk you out of it. I don’t want to fight Mom for you, but if she tries to make you go back, then I’ll fucking fight for you, because it’s better here. It’s not perfect, I know, but I think we can get it close if we work at it. If you’re miserable, though, you have to tell me so I can try to fix it. You have to tell me everything. I can’t read minds.”

  “Sometimes it seems like you can.”

  “That’s because we Leavitts are fucking sharp as tacks.”

  She turns her head to rest her temple against my shoulder. “It’s different here,” she says.

  “What is?”

  “Everything.”

  “Bad different or good different?”

  “Some of both.”

  “Yeah.” Her hair smells like fruit. Cherries. “It’s that way for me, too. You think you could ever get used to it?”

  “Probably.”

  We’re quiet for a minute. Her body is loose in my arms. Relaxed.

  “I love you, West,” she says.

  And Christ, it feels good.

  It feels solid. Strong enough that we can build on it. Sweeter than I expected, because she hasn’t said it in months.

  I hold my baby sister for a long time.

  “You ever think about what I asked you? If you could do anything, be anybody, what you would want?”

  “Not really.”

  I kiss the top of her cherry-scented head.

  Say, “Start.”

  The package from my grandma shows up a few days into January. At first I think it was delayed by bad weather, but the postmark shows she didn’t mail it until December 29.

  Inside, there’s a backgammon set wrapped up for Frankie, a new afghan big enough to cover the back of the couch, and a lumpy envelope with my name on it.

  I slip the envelope into my pocket. Later, when Frankie’s gone dancing back to her room and Caroline’s talking to Paul on her headset, I put my boots on and take the letter out on the landing at the top of the stairs.

  I read it holding my breath.

  Dear West,

  Michelle showed me the book you sent her with your pictures in it. It looks like you and your sister are doing good.

  I’m sending you my 5 yr. chip from AA. I’m going to get my 10 yr. next month. I don’t know what you’d want with it, but it’s something I’m proud of, like you are.

  I wish I could give you more. I never knew how to make things right with you.

  Your uncle Jack doesn’t talk about the trial anymore. Stephanie says they got a letter from the lawyer saying he’s given up the case so I guess that’s over with.

  Write to me when you can and tell me how you’re doing.

  I’ll keep an eye on your mother.

  Love,

  Joan

  It makes me fucking cry, that letter. I don’t know why.

  Maybe because of the things that are so obvious, she doesn’t even have to say them.

  That I’m never going home again.

  I never had a home in the first place.

  My mother is a child, my family is a mess, and I’m on my own.

  Joan wishes me well.

  After a minute, I dry my face. Look up at the sky. Inhale.

  It’s one of those winter days that don’t come often in Iowa, when the temperature drops so low that it hurts to breathe, but the sun comes out and the sky is thin blue, far away.

  The snow sparkles. The world blanketed in crystal.

  I pull my phone from my pocket and dial my mom. She picks up on the second ring.

  The conversation drifts for a while. The wind gusts up, lifting powdery surface snow and sending it whirling over the fields. I make the right noises at the right times and wait for the moment.

  Then I say it. “I want permanent custody of Frankie.”

  The sun ducks behind a cloud. My mom protests, argues with me, but I just brace myself there. Let the wind blow over me.

  It’s no surprise when my mom finally asks, “You’ll still let me see her?”

  “Of course. I’ll fly you out for the guardianship hearing, and you can stay awhile.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Then she’s quiet, and I’m quiet, too. I guess we both know what it means.

  “I love you, West,” she says.

  I say, “I love you, too.” Because it’s true. And because it’s kind.

  And because it’s over.

  It’s a week into January when I go by the art building looking for Rikki. I want to talk to her about art therapy for Frankie.

  I don’t know what art therapy costs, or even if it’s something that would do Franks any good, but Caroline pointed out that it’s helped her a lot to have a therapist to talk to since the thing with Nate, and maybe I shouldn’t be so close-minded about it.

  I shouldn’t. I’m trying not to be. Frankie’s still having nightmares, so there’s plenty of room for improvement, and like Caroline says, it’s unlikely to hurt. Frankie will probably see it as art lessons from Rikki, which they’re already more or less doing every time she goes over to Rikki’s place with the sketchbook I gave her for Christmas.

  I try Rikki’s office, but she’s not there, so I swing by the studio where she teaches her classes. I find her there with Raffe and Annie – the dude with the crazy hair from my Studio Art class and the tiny blonde he always hangs around with.

  Since I quit smoking and it started snowing all the time, I haven’t run into them as much as I used to, and it gives me a jolt to see them now during break.

  Makes me wonder what kind of families Raffe and Annie have got, that they’re here on campus in January hanging out in the art building.

  They’re each bent over white forms on the table that look like ceramic ice cube trays. Rikki is tapping what looks like shiny white sand into one opening with the back of a spoon. “The trick is to make sure you do not leave too much air in here,” she’s saying. “Because then you will have bubbles, and the frit will not melt evenly.�
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  Raffe glances up. “Leavitt,” he says.

  “Hey, Raffe.”

  Annie acknowledges me with a dip of her eyelashes, which is all I’ve ever managed to get out of Annie. Raffe, I’ve talked to a few times, but only the kind of polite conversation that doesn’t go anywhere.

  You done with that?

  Yeah, it’s all yours.

  Thanks.

  “You here over break?” I ask.

  “Yeah. We’re doing a January-term independent thing with Rikki.”

  “What on?”

  “Frit casting.” He wiggles his fingers like a magician.

  It’s because of Rikki that Laurie is working in glass. He used to be satisfied making giant sculptures out of metal, but now he’s got to have giant glass hammers, too, even though he wasn’t kidding when he said the logistics are a fucking pain in the ass. A one-to-one casting of a glass hammer is a tough object to make, but not impossible. Multiply the scale by a thousand? Enormous fucking headache, because where are you going to get that much glass? How the fuck do you make the mold, and more to the point, where’s the kiln to fire a glass hammer the size of a car?

  This is the kind of stuff he pays me to try to figure out. Which, actually, I fucking love it. Best job I’ve ever had.

  “Did you need something?” Rikki asks.

  I come back to myself, realize I’m standing there staring at the molds piled with frit and daydreaming about work. “Yeah. No. I mean, it can wait. I just wanted to talk to you about something, but you’re busy.”

  “I can make some time if it’s important. Is it Frankie?”

  “Nah, just class stuff,” I lie.

  “Are you going to be in Laurie’s 3D Design in the spring?” Raffe asks.

  “No, I didn’t sign up.”

  “How come?”

  I shrug. “Just didn’t.”

  Rikki gives me a look. “What did you register for?”

  “A bio class, organic chemistry, an econ seminar, and an advanced statistics thing.”

  “Those are all sciences.”

  “Econ is a social science.”

  “Why do you need so much science?”

  “It’s practical.”

  She sniffs. “Practical. You do not need more practical. You need more art.”

  This is Rikki’s shtick. I need more art. I need to learn to play. I need to let myself take up more space in the world.

  I’ve heard it enough times now that I keep thinking it’ll stop digging into me, but it hasn’t. Every time, I feel like she’s scraping over something soft inside me. It makes me irritable. I think she knows it, too.

  I think that’s why she does it.

  The thing is, I liked her class. It frustrated the hell out of me, but I liked it.

  I like working with Laurie.

  I even liked Russian history and Music in African-American Lit and Spanish, but when it came time to register for the spring semester, I went with bio, chem, econ, and math because the scholarship I’m on is worth more than fifty thousand dollars a year, and I don’t know what I could do with art.

  Nothing, probably.

  I can’t waste all that money on nothing.

  Rikki’s watching me. Her hair is in pigtails. She’s got on a vest made of blue fur and underneath it a black long-sleeve top made out of leather. She should be ridiculous, but instead she makes these crazy clothes look like what everybody’s supposed to be wearing.

  She makes her life seem like a life anybody could have, and should, if that’s what they want.

  I rub my hand across my throat. Too hot. “What are you guys making?”

  Raffe smiles. “We’re casting tiles for color samples. Annie, where’d the book go?”

  She hands it to him, and he shows me pages and pages of small glass tiles in a rainbow of colors. I ask a few questions, get some answers, ask a few more, and then we’re off talking about the technique and how it works, where it can go wrong, what might be a better way.

  Before I know it, I’ve got a spoon in my hand that I’m using to tamp down frit into the mold that was Rikki’s. It’s careful work, meticulous. Weighing out the components, adding the powder to the frit in tenths and hundredths of a gram. Ten grams in each opening. Tap tap tap.

  “See, this is the kind of art I like,” I say.

  “How come?” Raffe asks.

  “It’s technique. I like the technique stuff. Or when it’s a puzzle, when Laurie needs something and I have to figure out how to get some result that you want but it takes a lot of planning or science or knowledge about materials to make it happen.”

  “You work with Laurie?” Raffe asks.

  “Yeah, I’m his assistant.”

  “That’s tight.”

  “It is. It would be perfect if it was a real job, you know, like, full-time, if I could be an assistant to somebody like Laurie.”

  “But don’t you want to make your own stuff?” Annie asks. She’s got a tiny metal funnel out, and she’s using it to add red pigment to a cup of frit sitting on top of a scale.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I’m not creative that way, but I don’t. I stop.

  Because I’m trying to notice, these days, when I’m making shit harder than it has to be.

  I’m trying to notice when there’s something I want and I’m throwing obstacles up in front of it for no reason at all.

  What I notice right now is that I was comfortable a few seconds ago, but I’ve started sweating, and I feel kind of… I don’t know, furtive. Like I’m checking out porn on the Internet when Caroline’s in the other room – not that I’d ever do that, but it’s that kind of forbidden feeling, as if I’m going to get caught talking about something I shouldn’t.

  The thing I shouldn’t be talking about is art.

  And what I say, when I open my mouth, is, “How do you know? How is that… How do you convince people it’s okay for you to be doing this stuff?”

  Raffe exhales a laugh. “Who, like parents?”

  “No, not parents.” Yourself.

  Because that’s what I mean. How do I convince myself that it’s okay to take art classes?

  How do I make myself get out of my own fucking way?

  I drop the spoon in my hand and say, “It’s like – Well, take electives. You have to have so many classes for your major, whatever that is —”

  “Art,” Raffe says.

  Annie nods. “Art.”

  “Okay, but pretend it’s not art and you have to take bio classes, so you take those, one or two a semester, but you’ve got all these electives. So how do you decide what to take?”

  “Whatever looks interesting,” Raffe says.

  “Or if I’ve heard it’s really great,” Annie says, “like Gender and Women’s Studies with Professor Gates.”

  “Okay, well, what I do is think about work. I think what’s going to be most useful to get a job that pays well. What’s going to mean I’m in a position to make the most out of college.”

  “So how’d you end up in Studio Art?” Raffe asks.

  “Fluke.”

  “Huh. It seems like a good fit.”

  “I got a B-.”

  “Rikki’s a hard grader.”

  I look around, because he’s talking about her like she’s not here, and I realize she’s not. She must have slipped out when I wasn’t paying attention.

  “You know that assignment with the still life, and we were supposed to paint the apple?” I ask. “My apple looked like it belonged in a children’s book. This dipshit next to me, he never seemed to have the first fucking clue what was going on – swam through the whole semester in a daze – and then he paints this apple with, like, black and purple and blue and yellow and pink and white on his brush. No red at all. But when he’s done, it looks exactly like an apple.”

  “Wait, is this Kyle?” Raffe asks.

  “Is that his name?”

  “Skinny kid, always made Rikki repeat the demonstrations?”

  “Y
eah, him.”

  “He’s fucking gifted with colors, man.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. So Kyle is creative. He should make art. But me… I don’t want to be dicking around, wasting money on four credits when I’m not going to get anything out of it.”

  “Sounds like you got a job out of it,” Annie points out.

  “That was a fluke.”

  “Lot of flukes in this story,” she says mildly. “You know how I got into art?”

  “How?”

  “I took a class in high school, started messing around with drawing and painting and sculpture. When the bell rang, I never wanted to leave.”

  “Same for me,” Raffe says, “except it was here. First art class, and I was in the studio all the time. I’d forget to eat. Skipped meals, skipped parties, so I could be here doing this. Me and Annie – that’s how we met.”

  “But don’t you worry what you’re going to do with it?”

  “Rikki and Laurie seem to be surviving all right,” Raffe says.

  “But not everybody’s as lucky or as talented as Rikki and Laurie. You could crash and burn, and then where’d you be?”

  Raffe says, “I’d be a guy with a bachelor’s from Putnam who knows how to work hard on something that’s important to me, and who knows how to take something I’m passionate about and try to realize it, and how to communicate that passion to the rest of the world. That’s not, like, wasted time. And even if it was, I’m not sure I care.” He picks up a plastic tub full of frit and powder and starts shaking it to mix the color in. “Plus, dude, you’re what, twenty?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “So, you’re twenty-one. You’re allowed to fuck around and experiment with stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s the point of being twenty-one.”

  “It’s not like you can only ever have one career,” Annie says. “You can make art and teach school, and if you hate teaching school you can run a gas station, and if you hate running a gas station you could try your hand at embalming dead bodies, and the whole time you’re making things, if that feels good.”

  “Embalming dead bodies?” I ask.

  “Just as an example.”

  Raffe finishes shaking his frit and sets the container down on the table. “For what it’s worth, Leavitt, you’ve got talent. It’s just not the same as Kyle’s. He’s got an eye for color. You’re precise, and you see things from more than one angle. You’re good at solving problems, because you’re fucking persistent. I could see all that just taking a class with you, and I know I’m not wrong because Laurie hired you, which he wouldn’t have done if he didn’t think you had something.”