“Al,” I said, startling myself with my own name. “Allen Theodore Foster, stop talking to yourself, you nut. You loon.”
Bailey called.
“You ass,” she said when I picked up. “You need to get home and help your parents.”
“I’m in Utah,” I said, “I’m in Texas. I’m soul-searching.”
“No one gives a shit, Al. No one pities you. It was harder on your parents, you know.” I held the phone away from my ear, but it sounded like Louise was in the room. I looked to the panty where her ghost stood in the doorway, juggling flaming marshmallows. “Grow up.”
“No, you’re the baby,” I said. Dammit, I thought, that’s not an argument.
I hung up.
I picked up more shifts at the ice cream parlor that week. My freckled coworker invited me to another party, then to her dorm room where I learned from the tag on the door that her name was either Brenna O’Sullivan or Sophia Papapostolos. With seven-beers’ boldness I closed the door behind us then pushed her up against it. “Brenna, you’re beautiful,” I said, feeling like the hero of a movie. I felt myself grow chest hair and a strong jaw. “I’ve been waiting for this forever.”
We feel asleep with our clothes tangled and half-off. I woke up once in the night, too dizzy and thirsty to regret that we’d drank too much to do anything but kiss and pass out. I felt around on her bedside table for a glass of water, knocked over a few pictures, then fell back asleep.
She waited until breakfast in the dining hall to tell me that her name was Sophia. “I look like my mom’s side,” she said. “I’m not angry because I can’t remember your name, either.”
“Al. Allen. A.T.” I said.
“Al from Florida,” she said. “Cool.”
Cathy had moved the futon into the garage. Bitch bitch bitch. As I left for work that afternoon, the sky was a dark, swelling grey. I put the hide-a-rock in a bush on the other side of the garden. Good luck finding that, Cathy Berman.
“Allen? Will you go down to the Aubuchon and get me a screwdriver?” the owner asked. Rain had driven the tourists off the cobblestoned streets to their bed and breakfasts. I imagined them all sitting fireside, nursing their fetishes for the old and quaint with brick hearths and hot chocolate from hand-crafted mugs.
I grabbed my poncho.
“Oh shoot. You don’t have a car.” The owner grabbed her keys. “I’ll go. Watch Emily for me?”
The screen door slammed and Emily retreated behind the freezer.
“Hey. My names Al. Do you want to be friends?”
The freezer was still.
“Do you like pink?”
Outside, thunder rumbled. The tourists probably cuddled together near their quaint, New England fires.
“Do you like ice cream?”
A truck splashed through a puddle.
“My mom isn’t here,” said a tiny voice behind the freezer.
“I know,” I said. “Isn’t it the worst?”
Emily shuffled out into the center of the black and while tiled floor. “I’m Emily,” she said from between her rabbit’s ears.
Greg called again that night. “Hannah told me what you said to her. You can’t just tell someone that they’d be better off buying 140,000 dollars’ worth of books than going to college, Al.” Greg’s voice was breathy, exhausted. “I mean, say that to me, say that to Bailey. Just not Hannah. She’s so easily deflated.”
I told Greg that I had conned a 60,000 dollar loan out of Chase and had bought my own island.
“You’re an asshole,” he said.
I hung up, preferring my silent ghost Greg, who sat cross-legged between open books on the braided carpet.
“Dude, I miss you,” I said. I listened to the waves lap up against the dock. Shit, I thought. Shit shit shit.
“Dude,” I said, lowering myself to the carpet. I looked at my phone. 64 missed calls. I threw it against the wall, the impact sending a decorative birch branch clattering to the ground. “This is such shit.”
I stood up to look out my window, the view blurred by the heavy rain. I squinted. A tall, thin figure was hunched over on my dock. I knew it wasn’t Hannah this time. I went outside without my poncho.
“Good morning Allen,” George said, barely turning as I walked onto the dock. “I apologize for trespassing. Pabst?” He handed me a beer. Four empty cans were crumbled around his feet.
It was evening and I was the trespasser, but I did not correct him. The rain had flattened his fluffy white hair to his head in the shape of a bowl cut. He looked like a monk or some strange Beatle wannabee.
“I just miss her,” he said. He gestured up towards the house. “Does it feel like she’s in there?”
“Yeah,” I said. I was sure he knew I was lying. “Of course it does.”
“The funeral was awful,” he said. “I don’t know the family. I’ve never felt so lonely.” I looked down at the slippery, uneven boards of the dock. I knew he was talking to me, but I felt like I was intruding.