Honey Girl Page 8

  “Porter—”

  “Listen,” she demands. Her knuckles go tense around the arms of the chair. “I’ve been fighting for this since I was eighteen. I’m turning twenty-nine this year, and I’ve never taken a damn day off. Not even on weekends.”

  “Okay,” he cuts in, hand up. “Let’s try to keep this civil. Now, let me see if I can break this down.”

  She opens her mouth to argue, and Colonel raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t I let you talk?” She shuts her mouth. “You chose a course of study. You pursued that course of study as you were expected. You became a doctor in the field. How am I doing so far?”

  Grace blows out a breath through her nose. She stays quiet.

  “You didn’t want to do medicine, so you didn’t do medicine. The only expectation I had was that you see astronomy through to the end of its course and find a stable career in that field. It seems our expectations are no longer aligned. So, explain it to me. You’d like a vacation instead of a job?”

  Grace can feel her entire body pull taut and tense, like a rubber band stretched to its limit. One wrong move, and it turns into a stinging weapon. “I didn’t say anything about a vacation. I just think maybe I could use a break. I know it’ll be a fight to get in the door. I just want some time to breathe before then.”

  “You knew this when you decided to pursue astronomy, yes?”

  She bites her tongue hard. “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel runs a hand over his face. He turns his back to her and stares out his huge window. There’s nothing out there that will give him any answers, but he turns away regardless. “You know,” he says quietly, “I think there was a part of me that always knew this would happen.”

  “There’s nothing happening.” She feels frustration simmer like heat in the pit of her stomach. “I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s just hard and frustrating and—”

  “I knew this would happen,” he repeats. He turns back around, and he looks at Grace like she is a stranger. “Things get hard, and you want to give up. You want to flee. There is more of your mother in you than you know, Porter.”

  It hurts like a punch in the gut. He says it with such shame, such disappointment.

  “Is it so terrible to be like Mom in some ways?” She stares up at Colonel, eyes burning. She lifts her chin in defiance, like a stubborn, jutting coastal cliff. “Is it so terrible to be like someone you loved once?”

  Another standoff. She refuses to break, refuses to cave, refuses to give in. Colonel deflates. It’s nothing noticeable, but Grace has seen the proud stature of his shoulders enough to know when they come back down to earth.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asks wearily. He rubs his leg, aching again, and he looks older and more tired than Grace has ever seen. He looks like a Black man who has been going and going for a long time and never, ever stopped. Someone who never wavered from the path they were put on.

  “Mom sent me some money,” she says suddenly. “Maybe I could—” She falters, trying to find the words. “Maybe I could visit her for a little bit.” Colonel barks out a dry, disbelieving laugh. Grace flinches and has to catch herself. “It’s been a while since I—”

  “I know how long it’s been,” he cuts in. His arms come free of their crossed grip. “Is she even in Florida? Or is she doing some candle retreat in Tibet again? Or was that sheep farming in Iceland?”

  Grace shakes her head. “I think she’s home,” she says. “I could stay until harvest season. Maybe help her with the groves and recharge and clear my head. It’s honest work.”

  Colonel nods, as if things he already foresaw are being confirmed. He walks across the office, leg held stiff and his teeth gritted. He opens his office door, a clear dismissal.

  “It is honest work,” he says, his voice as quiet as Grace has ever heard it. “But, it’s not your work. Dismissed, Porter.”

  “Yes, sir.” She walks out, flicking her scrunchie against her wrist. The sting of this distracts from the one in her father’s words.

  Colonel closes his door. She slinks through the aisles of the office, and no one gives her a second glance. Not even Miss Debbie.

  * * *

  “And then he said, ‘It’s not your work’ and it was so goddamn condescending. I just sat there and let him say that to me.” Grace groans, turning her head into Ximena’s lap. “I know it’s not my work, but my work is keeping me up at night.”

  Ximena hums. It’s nearing 10 p.m. and the hospital, this part of it anyway, is quiet. Ximena’s in her lavender scrubs and ugly, comfortable shoes, and she’s the best person for a good hug. “He’s your dad,” she says simply. “Parents are weird. Our parents were taught that they couldn’t stop. If they worked hard enough, twice as hard even, things would work out. It’s hard to fight them on that, you know? They think they’re right, and we think we’re right.”

  Grace relaxes at Ximena’s reassuring smile. They’re out of the way, tucked in a corner of one of the waiting rooms. It’s empty except for them and an old woman who’s sleeping with her chin tucked into her chest. She looks like she’s been here for hours.

  “I’m not keeping you from work, right?” she asks again. “I can leave.” Grace really, really wants to stay.

  Ximena snorts, but she doesn’t move. “We both know you wouldn’t leave. You would mope around until Agnes came, and then you’d be griping at her.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  She flicks Grace on the forehead. “You’re not keeping me from work,” she says for the third time. “Room 542 told me I was ‘in too good of a mood’ and sent me away, so I’m free for another eight minutes.”

  “Good,” Grace sighs. “That means you have eight minutes to commiserate about how Colonel was wrong. Let’s get to it.”

  Ximena is silent, and Grace looks up to see the hesitation on her face.

  “Ximena,” she says. “I’m waiting.”

  Ximena blows out a breath. She checks her watch, because she’s responsible and efficient and wears a watch, and glances down at Grace. “I know you and Colonel have your issues,” she starts slowly, “and normally you know I would say he’s being too much.”

  “And how is this different?”

  Ximena shoves her curls behind her ear in frustration. This close, Grace can make out the brown freckles that splatter over her nose and cheeks and brown skin. “He was wrong to dismiss you for needing a break,” she says. “Because it’s true, Porter, you need a fucking break. You think we all can’t see that?”

  Grace tenses, and Ximena smooths a hand down her back. “I don’t need a break,” Grace insists. “I just think having one would help clear my head. Anyway.”

  “Anyway,” Ximena says, “I think maybe you should think about where he’s coming from. He’s always worked so hard, and he taught you to do the same. Maybe he sees you staying in Florida with your mom for a while as running away from the problem.”

  “But it’s not running away.”

  “It’s not,” Ximena agrees. “I’m not saying he’s right, Porter. I’m just saying maybe you need to make him see your perspective. Maybe get your mom to help. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”

  Grace squeezes her eyes shut.

  “Not right now,” she says to Ximena. “I feel like I’m falling apart as it is.”

  “Okay,” Ximena says. Her voice is calm and even. “I’ll drop it.” She looks at her watch again. “I should probably go anyway. I have a new patient. Apparently, she has grabby hands.”

  “Really?” Grace asks. “I mean, I couldn’t blame her. I have one of the hottest best friends in town.”

  Ximena shakes her head with a small, teasing smile pulling at her mouth. “Maybe it’ll be a welcome change from those horny-ass teenagers who ask me to read them porn. Like, fuck off, Timothy.”

  That startles a laugh out of Grace, loud, cackling and inappropriate in a
hospital waiting room. It frees up some of the black sludge in her chest.

  “There you are,” Ximena says softly. “There’s my girl.”

  “Here I am.”

  They maneuver up, and Ximena leaves her with one last kiss, buried in her hair. “Agnes should be around soon. You know she likes terrorizing the staff while she waits for me to get off work.”

  “That sounds right,” Grace says. “She was a menace when she was stuck in here.”

  Ximena huffs. “She’s a menace now. Don’t leave before you see her, okay? Promise.”

  She holds out a pinky that Grace takes easily. “I promise. Love you so much it hurts.”

  “Love you, Star Girl.”

  Ximena walks away. The nurses leave Grace be because she’s familiar enough to them now. She closes her eyes and envisions a timeline where it succeeded, the compromises she made to keep Mom and Colonel and herself happy. Where following her dreams didn’t feel like so much endless, uncertain work.

  She comes back to herself when Agnes slinks into the waiting room. It’s late, and it looks like she’s been asleep since she got off work nearly six hours ago. Her scarlet beret is impossible to miss, as is the relieved groan she lets out when she sees Grace.

  “God, I thought you were on the fourth floor, not the fifth. I was looking for you for, like, ten minutes.”

  Grace gives her a weak smile. She’s tired. She tries anyway.

  Agnes plops down on the seat next to her. “Shit,” she says. “What is it? Are you in trouble? I’ve got us covered.” She rummages around in her pockets, and then her holographic fanny pack.

  Grace reaches for her. “I’m not in trouble,” she reassures. “Agnes, Agnes, what are you looking for?”

  Agnes looks up. In her hands she’s holding a small pocketknife and eight quarters.

  Grace sighs. “I guess I can understand the knife? But why the quarters?”

  “Pay phone,” Agnes says. “Duh.”

  “Right, of course. But I’m good.”

  Agnes shoves her knife and all her change back in her fanny pack. “So, you look like shit,” she observes. “Wanna talk about it or do that thing where we pretend feelings are stupid and don’t exist? I love that one.”

  “The second, please,” Grace says. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and stares at the screen. Her home screen, the one she looks at now, is a picture of an orange grove. Her orange grove. She took it the last time she was there, last summer, before she needed to put her head down and finish her doctorate program. She misses it terribly.

  It’ll look the same when you come back, Mom told Grace. Everything stays the same around here.

  But Grace is not the same. Instead of the familiar fight to make room for herself in classes and labs, she finds herself in the unfamiliar terrain of the working world. And for the first time in eleven years, she finds herself weary and hesitant and wondering, Why did the universe choose me, if it knew I would have to fight tooth and nail? Grace has been busy, and now she would like to slow down. She would like to stop for a moment.

  “You’re hurting yourself,” Agnes says suddenly. She grabs Grace where she’s digging red, painful half-moons into her arm. “You know what, let’s get some air. This place makes me remember when I was stuck here and crazy. Crazier. C’mon.” She tries to pull Grace up, but Grace makes herself heavy and unmoving, like the roots of a tree.

  “Porter,” Agnes says, voice sharp. “Let’s go outside.”

  Grace shakes her head, exhaustion hitting her all at once. Maybe it was the conversation with Colonel and rehashing it with Ximena. Maybe it is deciding, for once, to put her own needs first. “I want to call my mom,” she says. “I think I want to go away for a little bit. Visit the groves and have some space to breathe.”

  Agnes narrows her eyes, fingers still working to uncurl Grace’s nails from her skin. “Not that it’s any of my business, but do you need to call right now? It’s ten at night and even later there. Maybe get some sleep first.”

  “My mom is an insomniac like me. She’ll be up,” Grace says. She looks at Agnes. Her beret and sleep-mussed hair and moon-shadowed eyes. “I am tired,” she admits out loud. It becomes real, like that. “Maybe it’ll help to see what she thinks.”

  Agnes closes her eyes. “Twenty minutes,” she says. “If you’re not back by then, I’m sending Ximena after you.”

  Grace nods. “I’ll be okay” she says, the thought buzzing in circles around her brain. I just want to slow down. I just want to stop.

  “Okay,” Agnes says. “Get your hands to stop shaking before you call.”

  “I’m fine,” she says, disappearing out of the waiting room. “I’m okay.”

  She picks a back stairway where the walls and concrete steps don’t echo too much. It’s cold and dusty and dark, and she crouches low on the steps, back against the painted wall. She presses Call and listens to the line ring until the voice mail clicks on.

  “Figures,” she mutters. “Jesus fucking Christ. Just pick up.” Frustration boils over. This hallway has heard worse, if not from Grace then from someone else, frustrated or grieving or hiding.

  One more time.

  “Hey, Porter,” Mom says when she answers. Her voice is light, like perpetual summer. “I thought we were having a FaceTime call later this week? I’m in Germany.”

  Grace sighs. Of course, another trip. “Sorry,” she says. “Is this costing you money?”

  “The hostel has Wi-Fi,” Mom says. A deep voice comes from the other line, muffled and distorted. “Kelly says hi.”

  Kelly is Mom’s fiancé that Grace has never met in person. He wasn’t around when she visited last summer. Grace has only met him informally through grainy video connections. “Hi, Kelly,” she says flatly.

  “He just woke up,” Mom says. “Lightest sleeper I’ve ever seen. But nothing like your father. A yawn could wake Colonel up. Is he still like that?”

  Colonel had awful nightmares when she was younger. She would wake up to get water and would find Colonel sitting in the dark, his hand in the shape of a gun pointed at an invisible enemy.

  His hand never wavered, never trembled in its grip, even in his sleep.

  “I don’t know,” she says truthfully. Sharone would never say. “Listen, do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  “How long do you need? We’re heading out once we’re dressed for the day, and then I’ll lose the Wi-Fi. I’m all yours until then, Star Girl.”

  Grace squares her shoulders in this empty stairway. A soldier’s posture. “I want to come visit you at the groves,” she says, willing her voice firm. “Things have been a little—a little difficult, and I just need some time away.” She pauses. “What do you think?”

  “You want to come visit?” Mom asks. “I thought you’d be busy heading up teams to research distant moons by now.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Grace snaps, short-tempered. “I could help you get ready for the harvest season,” she says. “I would work. I’m not asking for a handout from you.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “Mom—”

  “Listen for a minute, Grace Adrian Porter,” Mom says. “I’m just asking you to tell me what’s going on. You don’t sound good. What’s wrong? Is it Colonel?”

  Grace leans her head against the wall. “No,” she says. “It’s not Colonel, Mom. It’s me. I just need—I want to get away for a while. Everything moved so fast for so long, and now I just—I just want a break.” She inhales a shaky, uneven breath and wipes her eyes. She lowers her voice, so not even her echo will hear her beg. “Please.”

  Mom clears her throat. “Tell me what happened,” she says. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she says. “It’s been taking more out of me than I realized, finding a position. The people have been taking mor
e out of me. I want some time to decide where I want to go next with my career. Professor MacMillan thought it sounded like a good idea, too.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Maybe getting away would help.”

  “I bet Colonel was thrilled to hear that,” Mom says, and Grace racks out a wet, broken laugh. “Can I tell you something?” Mom asks.

  Grace sighs. “Yeah,” she says. “Sure.”

  “I want you to know you can always come visit. Southbury is your home, same as Portland. But, baby, getting away won’t make the things go away, you hear me?” Mom’s voice is soft. “It took me a long time to learn that. But your father is a fighter, and he raised you to be a fighter because he knew what kind of world we’re living in. Don’t let it break your spirit or wring you out dry. Okay?”

  Grace swallows hard, tasting salt water. “Yeah,” she croaks out. “I hear you.”

  “Jesus, Porter, don’t cry. I can hear you. Don’t cry.”

  “I know.” She wipes her stinging eyes. “Porters don’t cry. I know.”

  Mom sniffs. “I used to hate hearing you say that,” she says. “But you’ve always listened to Colonel like he was God.”

  “Well, I didn’t know any better,” Grace says.

  “That’s a lie if I ever heard one,” Mom says, voice fierce. “I know neither me or Colonel are always right, but we always want the best for you. If you think coming to stay in Southbury for a while is the best thing for you, then I won’t say no.”

  “But?” Grace asks.

  “But it’ll be hard whether you’re in Portland or Florida or the North damn Pole. I don’t want you to stop because it’s hard. I know that’s real easy for me to say, but it’s true. Stop if you need a break, honey, but don’t stop because they want you to. You got too much potential.”

  It breaks something in Grace, the simple honesty in her words. It breaks something, to acknowledge out loud that it will not be easy, no matter where she looks. She mourns for the optimism she felt right after graduation, when she thought, I have come this far, and I will go even farther, and no one can stop me. She grieves for that feeling because even if Porters don’t cry, Grace does. Grace cries, in a hospital stairwell that’s heard worse.