Hey Jude Page 3

  “And you are cleaning your room tonight,” I say.

  She sighs again but doesn’t answer. I hate talking to her as if she’s a child, but sometimes that’s the only way I can get her to respond.

  Mom has made us mock-chicken fingers, cheesy toast and a pile of steaming peas. It’s a fairly uninteresting meal, but I try to look grateful. I became a vegetarian in fifth grade after watching a video about the meat industry. After that I refused to eat anything “with a face.” Instead of making different meals for Jude and me, Mom just embraced my choice, and we all went veggie. I love that about her. She just rolls with whatever life hands her.

  “So how did it go?” Mom asks, her mouth full of peas. She always eats super fast because she has to leave right after dinner to go to work. I hate that she has to work so much and always be in a rush.

  “Penny’s got a boyfriend,” Jude says in her singsong voice.

  I shoot her a glare. But I’m happy she was able to get herself to the table. And she’s actually participating in our conversation.

  “Oh, really?” Mom says, looking over at me.

  I blush.

  “He’s hot,” Jude says, laughing a little and pushing her peas around on her plate. She’s a master of the redirect. I am well aware that she’s not actually eating, just moving the food around to look like she is. I will make sure she gets something later if I have to.

  “When do we get to meet him?” Mom asks, shoving another forkful of peas into her mouth.

  “How about…never,” I say.

  “Oh come on, Penny Lane,” Mom says in a pretend whine.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Yeah, Penny Lane, we never get to meet any of your lovers,” Jude says.

  I hate it when they gang up on me like this.

  “Not fair that Jude got to meet him and I didn’t,” Mom says, now putting on an expert pout.

  “Okay, enough,” I say. I haven’t even eaten half of my meal, but I’m already pushing it away too. My stomach gets in knots when I think about Jack.

  Mom frowns and reaches out to me. She squeezes my hand. “We were just joking, my love,” she says.

  I frown at her. She makes her most sincere I love you face. I can’t help but let a single corner of my mouth turn up.

  “He is pretty cute,” I whisper.

  Mom claps and goes back to her peas.

  “Tell me everything,” she says.

  Chapter Eight

  Mom’s doing a double shift, so she’ll have to sleep when she can at the hospital. As she gets her shoes on, I tell her again that I hate how she has to work so much. She grabs my cheeks and kisses me on the forehead.

  “I do it because I love you two. You are my dream girls, you got that?”

  All I can do is smile and hug her tightly.

  Once Mom is out the door, I leave Jude in the kitchen to clean up. I go to my room to grab her night dose from my lockbox. I bought the box after she tried to overdose. It was expensive as hell, but worth it. I type in the four-number code and pop the door open. Jude’s on a couple of different things. It’s a complex mix of antidepressants and mood stabilizers that she and her psychiatrist worked out the first time she tried to kill herself. I have detailed instructions on how flexible we can be with the dosage. I have to be extra careful about raising it. Sometimes if a person is too depressed, a little bit of a boost from meds can increase the risk of suicide. It’s like the brain hasn’t caught up with itself—if there are thoughts of suicide in there already, having even a bit more energy can drive someone to complete. That’s what they call it. Completing. Not succeeding, because that sounds too positive. It’s a whole world of new language I had to learn quickly the hard way.

  When I go back downstairs, Jude is gone. She didn’t clean up.

  “Hey, Jude!” I call up the stairs. “You better be cleaning your room.”

  I hear a slight groan from the general direction of her bedroom, so at least I know she’s up there doing something. I sigh and tuck her pills into my pocket. Then I do a quick sweep of the kitchen. The dishwasher’s been dead for two years, so I have to wash everything by hand. I like washing dishes though. It’s sort of meditative, gives me time to think. Of course, my thoughts lead me to Jack. He still hasn’t texted. I work through our conversation in the theater again. For the millionth time. My selfishness at outing Jude. That pressing desire to talk to someone about it. Jack’s brave admission about his own mental health. The feeling of his shoulder on mine. I shiver despite the heat of the soapy water. I wish he would text. He ran away so quickly, and I want to know why. I want to know more about him in general. Where he came from, why he transferred, what music he likes besides the Beatles.

  Once I’m done doing the dishes, I fill a glass with water to bring to Jude. Her door is slightly ajar, which is kind of weird. I peer in through the crack, but I can’t see her. I push the door open with my foot.

  “Here comes the airplane,” I say to announce myself. I used to say that all the time when I was feeding her back when she was younger. I still say it sometimes now when I bring her pills. It’s stupid, but it makes her laugh.

  She doesn’t respond. She’s lying on her unmade bed, head down on a sketchbook, eyes closed. I’m surprised to see that she has actually cleaned up a little—if you can call heaping all the clothes and papers into a huge pile near her desk cleaning up.

  I go over and sit down beside her.

  “Jude,” I say, giving her a little poke with my finger.

  Her eyes shoot open, and her mouth makes a little round O.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She looks at me for a second like she doesn’t know who I am. Then her confusion clears, and she frowns a little. I dig her pills out of my pocket and pass them to her with the glass of water. She looks down at the pills in her hand, and the frown deepens.

  “Open wide,” I say.

  She pops the pills, opens her mouth for me, then picks up her sketchbook. It’s another self-portrait, but the eyes are scratched out. She’s gone over and over them with a black pen, covering them with little x’s. It makes me sad—and scared. I stand up so I don’t have to look at it. I walk over to the pile of clothes and crap by her desk and start pulling it apart piece by piece. I give every item the smell test except for the socks and underwear. I fold the clean clothes and toss the dirty ones into her laundry basket.

  “Don’t you ever get tired?” she asks, not looking up from her sketchbook, which she is now scribbling in.

  I keep folding and tossing. Every once in a while I encounter a crumpled magazine or piece of paper in the pile. I uncrumple them and put them on her desk.

  “Of what?” I ask. I know it’s a leading question. Of course I get tired—everyone does. But I want to see what she means. I’m on high alert.

  “Of living,” she says.

  I turn, and she looks up at me. Her makeup is still perfect. Did she reapply it at some point between sleeping and sleeping?

  “Not cool, Jude,” I say sternly. My Mom voice.

  “You know what I mean.” She rolls her eyes and tosses her sketchbook at me. I catch it but avoid looking at the picture of her with the dead x eyes. I close the book instead and put it on the growing pile on her desk.

  Then I sigh. “Of course I do.”

  “You work so fucking hard. And for what?” she asks, her voice sharp.

  I hate when she gets like this. Questions my entire existence just because she’s questioning hers.

  “For you, for Mom, for life,” I reply.

  Jude digs herself deeper under the comforter. “It’s all just so exhausting.”

  “I know,” I say. But I whisper it. I never want to make her feel like a burden.

  Then I hear my phone ring, and my heart skips with excitement. I am so sure it’s Jack that I can barely stop myself from running at top speed to my room.

  It’s not him though. It’s my boss, calling me into work because one of my co-wo
rkers, Becky, just broke up with her boyfriend and won’t stop crying into everyone’s lattes. Now I have to close. Damn it.

  I quickly get myself ready for my shift. When I check on Jude before I leave, she’s asleep again. I always hate going out when she gets like this, but I don’t have a choice.

  Chapter Nine

  The good news is that Jack texts me just as I step out the door. The bad news is he wants to go for a walk. But I’m on my way to work. He asks where I work, and I’m almost embarrassed to tell him. Java World is kind of gross, and a lot of the regulars are a little scummy. I mean, they’re nice enough, but it ain’t no Starbucks.

  When I get there, my boss, Manny, is losing his shit. He’s all alone, and there is a long line of customers waiting to order. I jump right in before I even put on my Java World T-shirt. Manny looks grateful and offers me one of his weird, over-the-top salesperson smiles. We deal with the line quickly. As soon as it’s gone, he tells me he’s got to run. His wife is pissed that he’s not home because she has book club at their house, and he was supposed to take their three-year-old out for dinner and a movie. I wave him off, and he tells me I can keep all the tips for today. A whopping $5.33—I’m rich.

  After the rush, things settle down and I get into a rhythm. A couple of regulars come in. Zane, an old guy who is missing all of his teeth, and Miss Pringle, who used to be a schoolteacher. Now she just teaches her cats how to fetch her things from the kitchen. I don’t really believe her claims that they can actually open the fridge and get her a pop. But hey, you never know.

  I start closing up a little earlier than Manny likes. He insists that we don’t shut down until 9:00 p.m. on the dot, in case of last-minute latte orders. But I want to get out of here right at nine. I don’t feel bad about it, because I always clean everything more thoroughly than any of my coworkers do. I usually find hidden grime that Becky or Abid left behind.

  The bell on the door rings when I’m in the back, elbow deep in dishwater. My heart sinks. I’m washing the espresso machine, which I have already dismantled. I hate to say no to a customer, but there is not much else I can do. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll just want a tea. I dry my arms and push through the kitchen curtain to the front.

  And there is Jack. Looking hot and amazing and perfect, leaning against my counter, at my shitty little job.

  He grins at me. “Still want that walk?”

  I nod.

  “Can I get a drink?” he says, flashing a five-dollar bill at me.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “Latte?”

  I start to laugh, a bit more than makes sense. I suddenly realize how exhausted I am. I sink onto the stool beside the cash. Jack raises his eyebrows, those gray eyes of his sparkling.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks.

  “I just shut down the machine.”

  “Ah, well, I’ll just get myself a tea then, shall I?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He just walks around the counter and fixes it himself. Luckily there’s no one left in the shop to report me to Manny. So I relax and watch Jack work. He looks confident behind the counter. He must have worked in a coffee shop before. He grabs a green-tea bag and fills the mug from the hot-water canister. Then he throws on a lid and grabs a cup sleeve. It takes him less than a minute. Then he’s back around the other side of the counter, sticking the five-dollar bill into my tip jar. I laugh, and he winks at me.

  “Fifteen minutes, okay?” I ask.

  “Take all the time you need,” he replies.

  Twenty minutes later we are out on the street. He offers to walk me home. Usually I take the bus, but I’m happy for the fresh air. It’s still warm, but the night has a hint of fall in it. I breathe deep and smile. Soon the leaves will start to turn, and then they will crunch under my feet. That is my favorite feeling in the world.

  “So have you lived in the city your whole life?” Jack asks.

  I nod, sipping on the hot chocolate I made myself before I left. It’s too hot, and it burns the tip of my tongue.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t?” I ask.

  He shoots me a look. “Do I have hick written all over me?”

  I laugh. Hick is the last word I would ever use to describe him.

  “I lived here in the city originally, but my parents moved us out to this small town in the middle of nowhere when I was, like, ten,” he says. “What they called country paradise. There was a church there they were a part of, but that was about it for socializing. I had to be bused away to a bigger town for school. And let’s just say that the diversity level was not that high. It sucked.”

  “Ugh, sorry,” I say. “So your parents moved back here then?”

  “Well, I did.” There’s a sadness in his voice.

  I glance over at him. He’s looking up at the sky, at the buildings around us. He’s got this innocent expression on his face, like all this is new to him.

  “They just let you go?” I ask.

  “They made me,” he replies.

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I stay quiet. I want to know more, but I don’t want to pry.

  “My big brother took me in. He’s, like, eight years older than me. He’s set up properly, sweet loft and everything. But I still feel like I’m intruding.”

  “That’s rough,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Could be worse.”

  I laugh. “I guess it could always be worse.”

  “And what about you, Penny Lane?”

  “What about me?”

  We glance at each other and lock eyes. There’s an intense interest in his gaze that I never see when people are looking at me. It makes me feel like I’m the center of the universe. A warm sensation that’s not only the hot chocolate fills my stomach, and I smile.

  “I’m just trying to exist,” I say finally. “You know, keep my shit together.”

  “I never said it earlier, but I’m sorry about your sister,” he says.

  I shrug. Try to look casual. But my constant worry is eating me up.

  “I love her to the ends of the earth,” I say. Tears well in my eyes, and I blink them back. I pick up the pace. I need to get home and check on her. I texted her before I left work, but she didn’t text back. She’s probably just sleeping, but still.

  Jack matches my pace. “Then she’s the luckiest person on earth,” he says.

  I stop in my tracks. Nobody has said anything that sweet to me in a long time. I turn to him, and he smiles.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…you are so nice. Why are you so nice?”

  “I’m just a small-town boy,” he says with a bit of a twang in his voice. He holds up his hands innocently, and I want to grab them, put them around my waist. I step closer to him, inhale his earthy scent. He looks at me intensely for a long moment, his gaze slowly traveling to my lips. My skin feels electric. Then he frowns suddenly and pulls out his phone.

  He checks it, but as it lights up I can see there aren’t any messages. He quickly clicks it off and sticks it back in his pocket.

  “Sorry, I have to go. I forgot that I have to get to the store and grab a few things for my brother before it closes.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  He shoots me a smile that I swear is a little sad, then gives me a wave and turns on his heel. I watch him walk away, a sinking feeling in my stomach. Was it me? His brother clearly didn’t text, so what was that all about? He did the same thing at the theater. I wish I knew him well enough to just straight-out ask, but I don’t want to pry.

  He doesn’t look back, and I wish he would.

  Chapter Ten

  After Jack leaves I walk home slowly. I want to give myself time to think and take in the air, which is getting cooler by the minute. But even at the slower pace, I soon reach my front door. Life is so fast for me. I wish I was more capable of slowing down and relaxing into things. Maybe that’s why Jack keeps leaving so abruptly—he can sense that I always feel rushed.

  When I get into the house, I putter arou
nd the kitchen for a bit to burn off my last bit of nervous energy. Then I climb the stairs. I don’t go to my room though. Instead I sneak into Jude’s. She’s still buried under her comforter. But she hasn’t closed the blinds, so the room is flooded in orange light from the streetlight outside her window. It gives the whole place a sullen sort of glow.

  I finish sorting out her pile of laundry and papers. I’m not worried about waking her. When she’s crashing, not even an elephant stomping through the room would disturb her. I would have to actually touch her to wake her up. When I’m done with the pile, I move on to the rest of the room. I start dusting everything with a T-shirt from her laundry basket. I also hang up some of her art on the walls with a roll of tape I find in her desk drawer. She has a lot of good pieces that were just tossed away, crumpled. She’s so talented, and I can’t stand it when she hates her work. It makes me sad to see masterpieces just thrown away like trash.

  When I’ve done everything I can do to clean her room, I take off my outer clothes and crawl into bed with her, digging deep into the comforter to find her small, fragile body. She makes a tiny grunt when I grab onto her and pull her into a spoon. Then she relaxes into me.

  “How was work, Mom?” she murmurs.

  “Work-like,” I reply.

  “It’s all so tiring,” she says.

  I wrap my arms even tighter around her. “It is.”

  “You should let yourself sleep more.” She shoves her butt back as she talks so she’s completely cradled by my body. I squeeze her even tighter around her waist. She’s so skinny. I know she hasn’t been eating, and I hate that, but there is only so much energy I can give to bossing her around. Some days I’m shocked that I even remember to give her her meds. When she’s not crashing or crashed completely, she sometimes remembers on her own. But she says the drugs make her fuzzy in the head. The problem is, she has tried so many, with varying side effects, and these were the least intolerable.

  “You do all the sleeping for me,” I whisper.