Robin Talley - Pulp

Ethan let out a noisy breath. “It’s like you want me to almost die again.”

“You didn’t almost die.” Abby rolled her eyes, but she was thinking, If you want to see Mom and Dad voluntarily in the same place at the same time again, almost dying is probably your best bet .

“Anyway.” Ethan wouldn’t meet her eyes. “They’re calling them both, right?”

“I don’t know. They’ll probably see who they can get to come. Dad was supposed to get back into town this morning, but he’s only staying one night before he has to leave again. Maybe they’ll call Mom, but she’s in—”

“Pennsylvania. I know.”

Abby sat down beside him on the bench, her backpack thumping heavily behind her. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Because Dad’ll be gone by then.”

Abby pretended not to hear the resentment in his voice. “They have to travel for work, Ethan.”

He shrugged and didn’t answer, even though he had to know it was the truth. Their mom was the president of a think tank, and Dad was a lawyer for the National Institutes of Health. They both worked long hours, and they were always having to leave DC for conferences and meetings and other stuff Abby had given up trying to keep track of.

“Everyone’s parents travel for work.” Abby fixed her eyes on her sandals. “It isn’t a big deal.”

“I don’t know anybody whose parents travel as much as Mom and Dad do.”

And a memory swam into Abby’s mind before she could stop it.

It was a week after the fight—the big fight, the one Linh saw—and everyone at home was being even quieter than usual. Well, Ethan and Abby were, at least. Mom and Dad, whichever one of them was home at any given time, were trying to act normal. Except they kept smiling too hard or sighing too loud, and making it that much more obvious that they were faking.

But their Tudor-style row house was a hundred years old, and the walls were thin. When you were upstairs, it was nearly impossible to have a conversation without everybody else on the second floor hearing you. Most of the time there was nothing to hear, since no one in the family spoke to each other anymore, but that night was different.

Mom was on the phone in her room. Abby could tell she was trying to keep her voice down, but it wasn’t working.

“No, no. Fine. Stay in New York if that’s what you want. I’ll be here, doing everything. Again.” There was a thin, pained note in her voice Abby had never heard before. As though she was actively trying to sound like she was suffering. “No, he’s fine, but I already told you she’s upset. You don’t remember? I think she had a fight with her girlfriend, and— yes , it was about that. What did you think? No, no, she didn’t say anything, you know she never tells me anything, but if you paid attention to anything other than yourself, maybe you’d start to realize—”

Abby didn’t hear any more after that. She shoved a pillow over her head, dug out her headphones and turned the music up loud enough to drown it all out.

Now, though, she kind of wished she’d kept listening. As far as she knew, that phone call was the last time her parents had actually spoken to each other.

“They’re never both home at the same time,” Ethan was muttering. “You’re hardly ever home, either.”

“I have a lot of work to do. I’m a senior, dude.” Abby tried to sound playful. She’d called him dude when he was a kid, and it always used to make him smile.

“But don’t you think—”

“All right, Ethan, it shouldn’t be much longer.” The principal’s voice boomed above them. “Abby Zimet! So good to see you.”

“Hi, Mr. Geis.” Abby stood up. Mr. Geis had been the assistant principal when she was in middle school. “How are you?”

“Very well, Abby. You must be a senior? I’m sorry, you’re probably missing a meeting or practice this afternoon, aren’t you?”

“I just got back from the health care protest at the White House.”

“Of course you did.” Mr. Geis smiled at her, but from the way his eyes kept darting down, she could tell he wanted to focus on Ethan. “You always were passionate about the causes you believed in. Are you taking Contemporary Politics this semester?”

“No, I’m doing the Women’s and Gender Studies seminar instead.” Come to think of it, didn’t she have a paper due for WGS sometime this week? On that campaign down in Virginia—the transgender candidate who was running against the homophobe?

Abby remembered talking to Vanessa about it, but she couldn’t remember when she was supposed to turn it in. It couldn’t have been due today, could it?

Shit...

“Well, don’t let us keep you, Abby.” Mr. Geis was still smiling at her brightly. “It was good seeing you. Now, young man, come into my office, please.”

Abby watched her brother climb to his feet without lifting his head and follow the no-longer-smiling Mr. Geis into the inner office. He didn’t look back.

“Your dad should be here any minute,” Mr. Geis was telling him as Abby turned to leave.

“What about my mom?” she heard Ethan say.

Mr. Geis paused. “Your father said she was out of town.”

“She isn’t coming?” Suddenly, Ethan sounded frantic. He couldn’t actually be surprised Mom wasn’t coming all the way from Pittsburgh to pick him up from school, could he?

“I’m sure you’ll talk to her when she’s back home.” Mr. Geis had barely gotten the words out before Ethan started moaning. Footsteps squeaked in the hall outside. “Is something wrong, Ethan?”

“I don’t feel good,” Ethan croaked, in the fakest voice imaginable.

“What’s going on?” It was Dad, frowning in the doorway. Of course he’d show up right as Ethan was laying on the drama. “Abby? What are you doing here?”

His suit jacket was rumpled. He’d probably been wearing it since he got up that morning in New York. He would’ve worn it the entire train ride back to Union Station, and the cab ride to his office after that, and then through all his meetings or lunches or whatever it was he did all day. Neither of their parents ever went home until it was absolutely unavoidable.

Behind them, Ethan moaned again.

“Is Ethan sick?” Dad’s face shifted from confusion to worry. For a second, Abby was jealous she’d never thought to try fake moaning. “I thought they said he got in trouble with his teacher.”

“You can go on in, Mr. Zimet,” Ms. Jackson said, emerging from the back room. She didn’t seem particularly worried. She’d probably heard plenty of fake moans in her time. “Your son’s in with Mr. Geis. He was feeling fine before.”

“All right.” Dad turned back to Abby, as though waiting for her to solve this puzzle for him.

“He wants Mom,” she whispered, as patiently as she could manage. “He thinks if he’s sick you’ll both come, the way you did when he had that appendix thing. You should probably get Mom on the phone. If he hears both your voices he might calm down.”

“Abby, it isn’t as simple as...” Dad glanced toward the office. “Wait for us out here and we’ll all go home together, all right?”

“Oh, um...” Her eyes darted up, down, anywhere but at him. As much as she wanted her parents to act like parents again, the thought of actually being alone with her dad and her brother for any amount of time was excruciating. “I’ve gotta go. I have a big project for, uh, French...”

But Abby couldn’t think of anything more to say about her fictional French project, so she darted under Dad’s arm and out of the office.

She was halfway down the hall before she realized she was running. Dad wouldn’t come after her, though, not with Ethan and Mr. Geis waiting.