Chapter 24
Dear July,
When you said you loved me, I really believed you. I didn’t doubt you for a minute. I thought you were the realest, warmest person I ever met.
Joe
When I hear the pounding, my heart leaps from somewhere down around my heel up into my brain, making me dizzy enough to grab the rail as I tear down the stairs. Please, let it be July. Please let her have changed her mind … Not that I have a clue what she’s thinking. What that was all about in the alley.
It is July, but I barely have time to make that out before she waves another one of her damn bags at me and disappears.
My mouth still has the sweet taste of her on it. I’ll be damned if I’m erasing that with food tonight.
But I shuffle over to retrieve the bag, relock the door, and head upstairs with it because her will is mine.
It’s not food though. It’s a notebook, an old spiral one. I turn on a reading light and drop into a chair, running my fingers over the battered, stained cover, not sure whether I want to open it.
Of course I have to open it. It’s from my July, written in her familiar, loopy, sixteen-year-old penmanship, the entries twenty years old.
She’s given me this for a reason. There must be some kind of answer for me in here. I flip to the first page and start reading.
July 7
I believe in soul mates because I’ve met mine. When Joe holds me and looks in my eyes, I feel precious. Not too big or okay or good—precious. Like he treasures me. Like what we have is treasure.
We’re not virgins anymore. I don’t think I should have been thinking of him as a boy I like. It’s not that I believe any of that stupid you’ve-had-sex-you’re-a-man-now stuff. It’s just that I’m not sure Joe has ever been a boy. He is sweeter, more generous, more loving, and more seriously grown-up than most of the adults I know. Yeah, he laughs and teases and jokes, but his core is true, strong, solid, grown man.
Tonight wasn’t sex; it was a promise. Joe’s it for me. I am gonna be with this man forever.
I have to stop reading for a second. Press my hand flat to the page. She’s laid her heart there, and I need to touch it again. Because I know what happened next.
July 8
I don’t know what’s going on. Something is wrong.
J [illegible, water spots, smeared ink] so scared.
July 9
I was sure I’d wake up and find out this was a nightmare. I don’t know for sure what’s happened to Joe. He wouldn’t have left me. I know it. I am praying and praying that he is okay.
I am so scared for him. This is so not like him. I sat up most of the night, hoping he’d call. I’m still waiting.
July 10
Joe, where are you? You have to call and let me know you’re okay. Please! I talked to Mom and Dad. They’ve been worried about me and about why you haven’t been around. Tonight when I couldn’t eat supper, I told them everything I know about y’all leaving so suddenly. I asked them how I can find out if you’re okay.
Dad says he’s got a friend at the police department, and he’ll ask him what he can do to check on you.
If y’all flew to Germany, you’d be there by now unless you stopped somewhere else on the way. PLEASE call and let me know you’re alright. I miss you. I love you. I’m scared for you.
***
July 12
Dad got some officers to do a “wellness check.” They said your landlord said y’all moved out. Mom and Dad said that if you are in Germany, it might take a while for mail to get here. Joe, I just don’t get why you wouldn’t have told me you were leaving. I miss you so much.
July 29
It’s been three weeks. Mom finally admitted she thinks I would have gotten a letter by now if you had written when you got there. And that if you were going to call, you would have already.
Last week there was a “For Rent” sign in the yard of your house. This week the sign is gone, and a new family with a little kid is living there.
Joe, I [unintelligible streaked ink, water blotches]
July 30
Should I have seen signs that you were ready to be done with me?
I can’t stand going to work anymore. Putting a big plastic smile on my face. People asking about you, or worse—just staring or whispering. Salad Bar Girl asked me if you were okay. Her eyes were as worried as I feel. I couldn’t answer. Everybody thinks I should know, but I know nothing. I asked Mom and Dad if they would think I was a loser if I quit. They just hugged me and said that I’m sixteen and I don’t have to work unless I want. So I gave a week’s notice tonight. That’s four more shifts. I hope I can make it.
Joe, I don’t get it. Why’d you leave like that? Why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you call or write? I [unintelligible]
July 31
I wish I just knew for sure that you’re alright. Some horrible part of me sometimes thinks that if you’re not alright, at least it would explain why you haven’t called or written. But that’s a terrible, selfish thought. I don’t want you to be hurt. I want you to be okay. I just want to be with you wherever you are. Well, and I want you to want me there. I don’t know whether to be mad or heartbroken or scared out of my mind for you. Everything feels horrible all the time. Even food is disgusting. Nothing is okay.
Brendan and Jen are being so sweet. I don’t go out anymore. I just stay home with the people who love me. We miss really liked you, Joe. How could you leave us like this? We…I miss you so much.
Aug. 2
I feel like a colossal bitch for being so upset with you when I don’t know for sure if you’re even okay. Yeah, I know the signs point to it. Maybe I’m in denial. I just—I KNOW you wouldn’t have wanted to leave me. I KNOW that you weren’t faking how you felt. Nobody could fake like that. But I think if you weren’t okay, if you weren’t still in the world, I’d feel it. I’d know it. I think you’re still alive. So why
Joe, come back or call me. Or write. Please. I can’t stand this.
Aug. 5
School started today. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. Becca Friedrich asked how much weight I’ve lost. I just stared at her. How much does a heart weigh?
Aug. 8
I must be the stupidest, most gullible person on the face of the planet. Are you somewhere laughing at me for thinking that you meant all those things you said? It’s not like any other boy ever showed that kind of interest.
I guess now I know why you chose that night to bring a condom. But really, that was kind of dumb on your part if you just wanted sex before you left because I would have given it to you anytime. You had me completely. I’m so stupid.
I look at the future, and all the plans I had seem stupid now. What was I thinking? Somebody with judgment like mine can’t run a business.
At school people talk to me, and I have to stand there and replay everything in my head to try to remember what they just said. Every day is so long. I come home and crawl in bed and try to remember how it felt to have your arms around me, and then I hate myself, and I try to forget how it felt to have your arms around me. Then I cry. Then I hate myself for crying.
Oh my fucking god. My girl…my poor girl. I’m doubled over, reading her pain.
Sept. 10
Mom and Dad are making me go to a counselor. I know they’re scared for me, and I’m sorry about that, but really, what’s the point? Just let me sleep. Just leave me alone. Just let me fucking die. I’m too stupid to live anyway.
Nov. 15
Stupid fucking pills make me feel like a zombie. I didn’t need pills for that. Mom said my clothes are too big—she wants to take me shopping. Who the fuck cares about clothes.
Dec. 24
Joe, I [unintelligible] you.
April 23
Jen needed me today, and I couldn’t help her. I heard her scream from the bathroom—she’d burnt herself on the curling iron—and I jumped up from the bed to go to her, but there were all these black spots, and I think I passed out for a minute. Then I couldn’t push myself up from the floor. I hollered to her to get the aloe gel under the sink and then to get some ice in a towel… I had to just yell because I couldn’t get up.
I’ve let you destroy me, Joe. All my strength is gone. I couldn’t even help my baby sister when she needed me.
I was crying when Mom came home later. I had to tell her I need help.
Oh holy Christ.
My guts are a giant knotted fist. If my dad were still alive, I’d hunt him down and kill him just for what he did to my sweet girl.
There’s a photo jammed between the next two pages. I pry it out and stare at it, not sure what I’m seeing. It’s a girl with death in her eyes. A frail girl with thin, lank blond hair and delicate bones and death in her eyes. She looks a little like Jen, but there’s Jen right next to her and Brendan on the other side.
My lungs seize up. Jesus fucking Christ.
It’s July. But about half the size she should be, with only a flicker of life and spirit left.
Jesus fucking Christ.
The whole world almost lost my girl.
I will myself not to throw up, but I can’t stop moaning. Have to wrap my arms around my gut the way I would around July if she were here. Rock and moan, just rock and moan.
But there are more entries, so I wipe my eyes and read on.
May 2
I ran into Big Angus today. Literally ran into him. Almost fell on my butt. He caught me and asked if I was okay, and when I said yeah, he looked at me like he didn’t believe me and said, “Really?” I tried to leave, but he kept walking beside me with those long-ass legs and asked if I would help his grandma collect stuff for the homeless shelter. I must’ve looked at him like he was crazy because he started telling me about how they need lots of stuff, and his grandma wanted him to get high school kids to help. I asked why he was asking me, and he said because he hates to talk. I said Angus, “It’s May and I’ve spoken like fifteen words this entire school year.” He said, “Yeah, but you need to talk. And you’re good at it. And people need you.”
Dammit. Sometimes I hate that overgrown mind-gamey son of a bitch.
I told him I’d call his grandma.
July 7
Joe, it’s been a year since I last saw you. I don’t know where you are or how you’re doing. The biggest, kindest part of me hopes that you are okay. Dammit, I wish I didn’t cry every time I think about that.
A mean, little part of me hopes that, if you are alive and healthy and just didn’t write or call, you’re every bit as miserable as I have been. It scares me how close I came to not making it. Mom and Dad and Jen and Brendan would’ve been wrecked if I died, and I was so, so close. I hope I never ever have to go through that again, and that nobody else has to either. I can’t—well, I just can’t.
The last entry is in a more adult scrawl, dated today.
Joe, when you came back, I started to dream dreams for me again. Started to have hopes for us again. And I immediately began to fall apart. Started forgetting to eat. That’s how my eating disorder started last time, when I was depressed and felt so out of control. Then I realized I had control over what I ate or what I didn’t eat.
I’m terrified, Joe. It took me months to build back my physical strength, and I still have to be careful. Look at myself in the mirror and do daily affirmations, just to talk myself through tough times. Because emotionally I’m not strong, and I don’t know that I ever will be.
None of this is your fault in any way. You are a wonderful man, and you deserve the best. I’m…not it. I need to just keep my focus on other people so I can hold it/me together. I’m sorry.
Love always,
July
The damn notebook is damp in my hands by the time I finish.
When I was in Germany thinking she didn’t care enough to answer my letters, it truly did almost break me. I let anger carry me through the grief and pain and sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, July was here, with those same feelings, plus a fear that something terrible might have happened to me. No wonder she broke.
But she’s wrong if she thinks she’s still broken. The July that built that wacky restaurant family, the July that gives and gives to anybody and everybody who needs anything, the July who came to the rescue and loaded me and two traumatized kids in her car and calmed us all down and got us to sing, for Christ’s sake, is so not broken.
And I’m not either.
I fish my phone out of my pocket, find the song I want, and text it to her. Then I go to bed. Nothing else I can do.
***
July
“I think we ought to take corn chowder off. Maybe come up with some kind of street corn dish.” Donna looks at me over the top of the menu we’re considering updating.
“Smokin’ Joe’s Pepper Pasta’s been a big hit. Maybe we should ask Joe if he’s got any street corn recipes. Where’s he been, anyway?” Tina’s tone is a little too innocent. She came in to make dough, but she’s been lingering out here where Donna and I are on break.
Where’s he been? In my dreams every night. In my imagination and my memory every freaking waking moment of every day.
It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve seen him. The first week was the easiest. Jen went into labor and had her baby and our folks came up from Florida and I spent as much time as I could with them and Brendan and Jen and my precious new nephew.
They asked about Joe too. I accidentally started it by asking who the gorgeous pink and coral roses were from. I knew they couldn’t be from Jen’s asshole husband.
Sure enough, Jen beamed up at me, her eyes tired but bright. “Joe sent those. Aren’t they beautiful?”
“How’d he know you had the baby?” My voice sounded fairly normal. Fairly casual. Gotta take pride in what I can when I can.
“Oh.” She waved her free hand dismissively. “He was supposed to come for dinner the day I went into labor. I had to call and ask him for a rain check.”
My mom leaned forward to adjust little Patrick’s sock. Precious baby can’t keep socks on for anything. “How is Joe doing? I was so glad to hear he’s back in town. That was terrible, what his parents did, but I’m glad to know there was a reason you didn’t hear from him, July. He seemed like such a nice boy.”
“Seemed like he was doing okay when I saw him at Lindon’s the other night.” Brendan glanced over at me. “He was with Hiromi and that friend of hers… What’s his name?”
“Dirk.” I picked up Jen’s empty glass and went to the kitchen to get her a refill. And to keep from hearing one more word about Joe.
It’s bad enough that I can’t go to sleep at night without playing that damn Jason Mraz song we sang in the car, the one about not giving up on us. Every night I pull up Joe’s text on my phone, see his message, You are so much stronger than you think , and hit play on the link. Then I lie there wondering what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, what it would be like to have him lying there with me, holding me tight and steady, his bright eyes crinkling at me.
Since my folks left, I’ve been working nonstop, trying to banish my flesh-and-blood ghost. I leave work only long enough to take treats to Jen and pace around the yard with Patrick so my sister can nap. During the day I set a timer for every five hours so that I won’t forget to eat.
Now I study Tina, wondering whether everybody’s in a conspiracy to push me into Joe’s already-way-too-appealing arms. Before I can tell her that I don’t know where he’s been, my phone buzzes.
It’s Andi. No-nonsense, as usual. Lindon’s tonight. You, me, Rose, Happy Hour 5:30.
Donna’s quiet voice breaks into my thoughts. “If that’s a social invitation, you should take it. We’re getting too soft around here, both shifts fully staffed now and you still working day and night.” She taps the table with one long, slim finger. “Don’t want you getting sick again.”
Ain’t that the truth, even though she’s talking about the bronchitis and ear infection, while I’m thinking about something bigger and older.
“Is it Joe?” Tina chirps. “If it’s Joe, you should definitely go!”
Donna groans and I roll my eyes at Tina. “Lord, woman, you are the nosiest person on the face of the planet.” I try to stare her down but she just winks at me.
“Fair enough. But is it Joe?”
I push up out of the booth and pick up my mostly empty salad bowl. “All right, y’all can tell the evening crew I’m taking the rest of the day off. I’m out of here. Call me if you need me.”
Upstairs I change clothes and take a long, slow run. It’s hard not to listen for Joe’s footfalls keeping pace beside me. Harder not to miss it. He should give up on us. On me. Why won’t he?
Might be a mistake, going tonight. Normally I love doing stuff with Andi or with Rose. It’s still a little weird to think of them as a pair, but they really seem to have hit it off, which could be a problem if they decide to matchmake me and Joe again.
I’m home with just enough time to shower and get to Lindon’s by 5:30. My friends are already there, huddled together over Rose’s phone at a table in the back.
“What’s up?” I slide into a chair across from them and pour myself a beer from the sweating pitcher on the table.
“I outdid myself!” Rose gives me one of her sweet, dimply smiles. “Look at this.” She passes over the phone.
It’s photos of Maisie’s cabin, but better than I’ve ever seen it. One corner of the living room—a corner that seemed gloomy and useless before—is now a bright study area with an L-shaped two-person desk topped with a whiteboard, pale bulletin boards, and bookshelves. The chairs look comfy, and there’s task lighting mounted under the shelves for the work surfaces.
“Wow, you really have, Rose!” I pass the phone back to her with the smile she deserves. “It’s so cute and so practical! I didn’t remember the cabin even having outlets there.”
“It didn’t. That was Angus. He was insulating everything and decided to rewire the place to make it safer. Added a bunch of outlets while he was at it.”
Andi doesn’t know Sam and Maisie, but I’m sure she’s heard the full story by now. She’s nodding in approval. “Have the kids seen it yet?”
Rose nods. “They’ve been in and out. Meg and David are really good about letting them spend some daytime hours up there. Sometimes the whole family goes up together to the lake. The younger kids love it.”
Maisie and Sam have continued working too, just as reliably as the rest of the crew. I shake my head, thinking about them. “Donna told me she and Tina sent the judge letters of support from both crews last week.”
Every one of the restaurant staff is amazing. They’ve been through stuff I’ve never had to face—abuse, death of loved ones, custody battles, poverty—and they survived and came out on this side better, surer, and still kind enough to go to bat for each other.
They’re strong like Joe.
I clear my throat, raise my mug for a drink, and swipe at my watering eye.
Andi’s watching me. “Where were you the other night? The rest of the team was here, all cleaned up. Weren’t even sweaty or smelly. Nice change.”
“I was…probably working? Or maybe at Jen’s. I got a perfect little nephew now, you know.” And major avoidance issues.
They fall for my subject change, saying, “Oh, yeah!” together and making the appropriate oohing and ahhing sounds when I pass around my own phone with my own pictures.
“Joe said he was a cutie. He was right.”
There it is. The Joe mention I knew was coming. Andi hands my phone back, and I stick it back into my pocket, muttering, “I guess he’s already been over to see him too.”
“Yeahhh…” They’re both staring at me oddly.
“Did you two have a fight or something?” Rose asks, just as Andi says, “There something we should know about him?”
I wave them off. “No. Why would we fight? He’s a great guy.” Just so tempting it’s taking all of my energy to resist.
Andi busies herself with the pitcher, topping off our mugs, while Rose stares at me with a tiny frown. “July,” Rose says finally, “if Joe were to tell you he’s madly in love with you and wants to try again, would you want to?”
Oh lord. How in the world can I answer that without either lying to my friends or laying the whole mess out on the table? I really don’t want to talk about this.
I must hesitate too long because Rose sucks in a breath and exchanges a look with Andi. Don’t know when they started reading each other’s minds, but it’s annoying as hell.
Andi comes right out with it. “He did, didn’t he? He said it.” She shoots Rose a glance. “I knew it. It’s all over his face every time he looks at her.”
I rub my jaw. Look over at some guys laughing about something on the TV behind the bar. Think some more about how to answer. “Not…exactly.” I sigh. “But kinda.”
“July!” Rose’s voice reaches a squeaky pitch I’ve never heard from her. She reins it in to say more quietly, “Then what’s wrong? You’ve loved him forever, right? Why are you not with him right this very minute?”
I glare at her, then at Andi. “It’s not that easy, okay? I don’t want…the same things I used to want.”
Rose makes a great show of reaching into her purse and pulling out a notebook and pen. She flips it open and reads aloud as she writes. “Reasons…crazy-ass July…would reject…a guy…like…Joe.”
“Number one,” Andi supplies immediately. “He’s too nice. She prefers her dicks in the metaphorical sense.”
“I see what you’re doing,” Rose mutters as she scribbles, “testing whether I can spell metaphorical .” She barely pauses before continuing. “Number two: Too sexy. Devilish eyes and washboard abs… Bleh, so overrated.”
“Number three.” Andi again. “Too much stamina. Have you seen how that dude can run? Bound to exhaust partner through excessive orgasms.”
I roll my eyes and listen to them and wonder why it is that nobody—not Joe, not Tina and Donna, not Rose, not Andi, not a single one of them—can see that I am not up to this. It’s like they think I can just choose love and everything will be fine. They of all people should know better. Why can’t they see I can’t do this?
Andi finally takes pity on me. “Okay, we’ll stop. But just in case it matters, you should know that I think Joe’s one of the truly good ones. And you know me, I’ve got plenty of reasons not to trust men, and I’ve never been serious about one in my life. But if I met somebody like Joe, who looked at me the way Joe looks at you, I might reconsider.”
And that, from Andi, is a stunning admission.