Tomorrow is Ben’s welcome back party, and our plans tonight involve final prep: all the food we can put together in Kit’s still-half-constructed kitchen, maybe an obnoxious sign or two that we’ll hang in Henry Tucker’s house, where the party will be. It’s not ideal, a Tuesday evening party, especially since Kit hardly ever takes a day off and Greer’s missing a night class to be there. But Kit says she wants the party on the very day of Ben’s arrival, and I get the feeling that there’s another kindness behind it too—of the three of us, I’m the only one not available on the weekends right now, and soTuesday it is.
I look back and forth between my friends, who’re now looking at me like I’m a wayward teen coming home past curfew. No way are we getting back to frosting cake and cutting cheese cubes before I spill it.
“I went on a job interview,” I say, all nonchalance, as if I haven’t spent the better portion of the day trying to wrap my brain around what’s happened in thelast few hours.
Last night I’d gotten home from camp rattled, exhausted more by my argument with Aiden than by the mostly sleepless night we’d spent all over each other. Lying in my bed, my mind racing through the weekend, I’d kept thinking about it: if he doesn’t go all in with the campground, if he doesn’t commit to run it himself, he won’t get it. And at the same time: if hedoesgo all in, if he agrees to run the camp himself, he might not be happy doing the job. Already his brother’s death has caused upheaval—his grief, the settlement, his move here, his parents’ move away. And now a career change too?
It’s not good.
But what else isn’t good is my obsessing over it, and by the time I dragged myself out of bed in the morning I’d known it was time for me to back off, to stop putting so much of my effort into something that belongs to Aiden. That’s not what I am to him, and the mental energy I’d been putting into his quest for the campground is all too familiar.
So I’d decided to change gears. Had decided todosomething.
However well I’ve faked casual, Kit and Greer aren’t buying, both of them wearing twin expressions of shock—a synchronized jaw drop that would be comical if it didn’t sting a little. It’s my fault, I know, that it’d gotten to the point where it probably seemed I’d never do anything useful again—butstill.
“I guess it’s not really a job,” I clarify, moving into the living room, Kit right behind me. I sit down on her slouchy canvas couch, reaching out for a water glass that’s on the table and taking a steadying sip. Our places are each other’s places—that’s how it’s always been, and reminding myself of this long-established familiarity gives me courage. “I might do some work for Legal Aid, downtown. On a volunteer basis.”
I feel, rather than see, Kit and Greer exchange a glance before they both sit, Kit next to me on the couch and Greer in Kit’s newly reupholstered armchair, another Tucker’s Salvage find. “Z,” Kit says, nudging my knee, “we want to know about this.”
I tap a newly polished nail against the side of the glass. “You guys know I’ve been a bit directionless. I figured I ought to do something with myself for once.”
Kit purses her lips in this way she has, an expression of displeasure at my flippancy. The revelation that I’d been so miserable at Willis-Hanawalt had been a shock to my friends. I’d never said a word to them about how unhappy I was there, particularly in that last year. All my work—the long hours, the unexpected, always urgent calls, the constant checking of my email—they’d taken it as I’d performed it: a necessary nuisance of work I was good at, work that I enjoyed and was paid damned well for. When I’d finally told them, relieved after cleaning out my office, about the Opryxa cases, about how horrible things had been and how guilty I’d felt, they’d been concerned, understanding. But I thought, too, that there’d been a little crack in our friendship. It wasn’t that they judged me for the workI’d been doing.
It was that they’d learned I’d been putting on a show for so long.
I don’t want that crack there, or at least I don’t want it to get bigger, so I push past my feelings and start talking. I tell them about Marisela, who directs the volunteer services division. I tell them about the email I’d sent her early this morning, though I leave out feeling spurred on by my feelings over Aiden. I tell them that I’d been cautious but sincere—I’m interested in the work you do at your offices—and that I’d been genuinely surprised when she’d called me at 9:06 this morning, talking fast and enthusiastic about the possibility of my joining “the team.” I tell them about the office itself, where I’d gone this afternoon for an initial meeting that had turned into a two-hour conversation—it’s small but clean, smelling a little like stale coffee but with all new furniture, a recent donation from a firm that requires pro bono hours fromits associates.
“At first I’d be doing this—well, it’s a hotline, I guess. People call in with questions about stuff like power of attorney or no-fault divorces or whatever, and leave a message with an intake assistant, usually college students or people early on in law school. And then I’d be responsible for spending a few hours calling back, doing consultation that way.” I’d watched Marisela do two today, one on debt relief and one on a foreclosure assist, and had felt my fingers twitch with something I hadn’t felt in months. I waseager. Eager to try it for myself.Eager towork.
“Zoe,” Greer says, “this is wonderful. I’m so—I’m soglad.”
The earnest relief in her voice makes my face heat again, and I wave a dismissive hand. “It was only an interview. She said she’d call in about a week.” Now that the adrenaline’s worn off, I feel a nudge of discomfort even thinking about it. What if she doesn’t call? Or what if she does, and then I realize I’ve done the wrong thing again, made the wrong move just by tryingto go forward?
“It’s probably a terrible idea,” I say lightly. “I’d probably stare at the volunteer law students all day and wonder if I should start Botox injections.”
“No,” says Kit, unexpectedly forceful. “You need to cut this out, downplaying everything you do.”
I offer up this—I don’t know what. Sort of a snort-laugh, thick with sarcasm, and Kit stands again, abruptly. Greer shifts to the edge of her chair, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Kit.
“Stop it, Zoe. Stop making a joke out of everything. We’re allowed to be worried. You’re doing this thing, practically getting on the rack every weekend for Aiden, coming home like you’ve been infected by his quiet. Now you’re finally doing somethingfor yourself—”
“Finally?” I scoff. “All I’vedoneis things for myself. You thought I was joking that night we won, my little spa treatments and strippers joke, but seriously, what have I done exceptplease myself?”
Kit opens her mouth to object, but Greer speaks first. “You’re figuring things out. Planning for your trip.” She says that last part with a slight inflection, aquestion in it.
I roll my eyes. “Greer, we all know I’m not planning for any trip.” I turn my attention back to Kit. “And I’m notgetting on the rackfor Aiden,” I tell her, my voice surprisingly loud. “He’s been through a lot, and it’s not my fault, but I’m part of that story, whether I like it or not. Helping him is theonething in my life that’s made me feel like I’m not just a...I don’t know. A wart on the ass of humanity, basically.” I snap my mouth shut, realizing I’ve let slip a little too much.
“That’s the one thing?” Greer says, and in the softness of her voice I hear something thatmakes me wince.
“That’s not what I mean,” I say, but there’s no conviction in it, not really. I love them—I love Kit and Greer like family, and it’s true that some days over the last few months, my plans with them are the only reason I get out of bed in the morning. But there’s this creeping doubt I have, deep down. Maybe Kit and Greer don’t know the real me, the ugly, unkind me who’s made so many wrong moves,big and small.
Kit looks down at me, and I shift to untuck my blouse from my skirt, avoiding her anger and her sympathy. I’m not sure which is worse. But when she speaks, her voice is gentler, softer. “I know he’s been through a lot. I know he’s grieving. But you don’t deserve to feel like this. If this is howhe makes you—”
“He doesn’t,” I say, and I mean it. He makes me feel like—like I’m tough enough to answer for myself. He asks me the questions my friends have been too kind to ask: whether I feel bad about the job I did, whether I’ll ever go back to being a lawyer, why I’m so afraid to do something with the money. “He’s part of the reason I did this,” I say, surprising myself.
“How do you mean?” asks Greer.
I think about his hand in mine on Sunday, the harsh words we’d exchanged about the camp and his plans for it. Despite my worries about getting too involved, it isn’t just me who pushes him. He pushes me too, and it feelsgood, that pushing, or at least it feelsright. Necessary. But I don’t know how to explain it to them. I don’t know how to explain that fighting with him makes me feel as if I’m finally getting somewhere. “I guess it’s the camp,” I say. “I’m so out of my routine there, you know? So when I get back, I think I might finally be able tomake a change.”
