Chapter Eight
Joel
THE DIVORCE WAS not a joke. It was not make-believe.
When Joel and Chloe returned home, Juliet was seated on the back porch, a cigarette dangling between her red lips. Joel hadn’t seen his mother smoke in years, so this was dangerous, and he sent Chloe over to her friend’s house. He took a seat by her side and said, “Where’s Dad? Get that thing out of your mouth, Mom.”
“I’ve been working overtime for years, Joel, and if I want to smoke one damn cigarette, I’m going to smoke it.”
He shook his head, wiping his face with his palms. There had been warning signs, of course, but now the thunderhead was near. He wondered what the trigger had been, the first clap of thunder. His dad was too busy to cheat, and his mom was too haggard to do anything but what his dad wanted. Maybe they had grown apart.
Maybe they wanted to be cut loose, like his relationship with Brie.
Maybe there did not have to be a reason.
“Your father and I aren’t happy anymore, Joel,” she said, throwing the cigarette into the grass. Joel said nothing. “It’s been years since we’ve had any sort of happiness. We’re sick of each other.” Then her head was in her hands, the sobbing stabbing Joel in the heart.
Not able to say anything else about his parents’ relationship’s demise, Joel blurted, “Mother Elsie went to the hospital.”
“What?” Juliet screeched. “Is she okay? What happened? Oh, dear Lord, I’m going to have to go to the hospital!”
“No, Mom, don’t panic. She’s alive and well. Supposedly she’ll be out of the hospital in a day or two. It’s okay.”
“I’m sure that was distracting from Pastor Boom’s message.”
Well, that, and something else. Joel nodded.
Juliet crossed her arms. “How’s Chlo?”
“She’s handling it. We’re both just confused.”
His mother nodded, her hair looking fried in the glint of the afternoon sun. “I’m confused too, honey. This isn’t what I planned, but things have been tough on us for the past year or so.”
“Is Dad going to move out?”
“For right now, no. We don’t have the finances for it. We have to think of you guys before we make any rush decisions. But maybe soon.”
“If he really cared about the finances, he wouldn’t gamble every Tuesday night with his friends.”
“That’s true. Okay, I’ve been crying all morning, and I want to stop. Tell me about church. More. I just want to hear anything about it, so it will distract me from my personal horror story.”
Joel stretched out his long legs before him. Sometimes in the mornings, deer would poke out from the brush of the woods behind their house. Joel loved mornings, at least mornings in which he was not dead to the world. He hated getting up but adored the rise of the exploding sun.
“Do you remember Sarah Towson?”
“Your class valedictorian, Miss California, daughter of Helena Towson. She goes to our church. Of course I remember her,” Juliet said, her voice laced in a fit of annoyance. Helena Towson was the town’s queen bee, the prime example of modern-day housewife, supermom, and excellent attorney. Helena Towson, thought Joel, was nothing like her daughter.
“Yes. Well, she’s back in town, and I haven’t seen her since graduation last year. She’s changed a lot.”
“What do you mean?” Juliet asked.
“She’s definitely more outgoing. The Sarah I saw never once spoke up about anything, and she sure wasn’t going to start a conversation. Then this morning, she sashays in like she owns the church, and she’s just like her mom!”
Juliet tried to decipher what Joel meant by “just like her mom.” A liar? A vitriolic, spiteful person? Beautiful? A go-getter? Does anything to get what she wants? But Juliet tried to reconcile this description with the meek Sarah she’d remembered. Was it possible a person could change that quickly, over a year’s time? She thought back to her life one year ago, when Joel had graduated from high school, and Ethan had surprised her with a getaway to Hilton Head for their twentieth anniversary. Things had changed in a year for her, and she was—probably—a completely different person.
“Are you interested in Sarah?” Juliet asked, her voice raising an octave. She thought of the sweet girl, Brie.
“Do you mean, like, interested interested?” Joel asked, blushing a profuse and burning red. “No, no. I just meant… I just meant she’s a lot different now.”
“In a good or bad way?”
“Honestly, I’m not really sure,” Joel said, imagining a cigarette on his lips at the moment. He’d tried them and hated them, but he still believed they oozed an aura of cool, kind of like the ever impressionable James Dean. Joel wondered if he would ever make a good James Dean.
Juliet stood up, wrapping her robe closer to her chest. She looked even more fatigued now, the stress painting her face like makeup. “Honey, I’m going to run over to Grandma’s, okay? I’ll text Chloe to let her know.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Just like that—like normal—he was left alone, with nothing to do.
WHENEVER THIS HAPPENED—which was a lot—Joel headed over to his best friend’s house. Manuel “Manny” Dominguez was the only Hispanic kid who’d ever attended the Christian private school where they graduated, and now he was the first person in his family to attend college. Manny was a devout Catholic who mostly abstained from sex and booze but occasionally partied. Like Alex, Manny was not a social creature by choice, but rather, his friendship with Joel caused him to attend some parties, and this made his parents proud.
“Mira a nuestro hijo, Manuel! Es muy popular, es un Americano perfecto.” Look at our son. He is very popular, he is a perfect American.
Manny, on the other hand, was not worried about popularity, but rather his internship at the hospital under Dr. Jennifer Reinhardt’s jurisdiction. Manny wanted to be a doctor, which heightened his popularity even more, but eventually Manny moved out from his parent’s tiny beach condo into an apartment in the western outskirts of Savannah, which was a long drive from Joel’s Breezewater home. Surprisingly enough, Manny and Joel did not share an apartment, as Joel lifted with some of his fraternity brothers, whereas Manny shared his with a friend named Aleja.
Joel entered the apartment, finding the door unlocked. Manny sat on the edge of his sofa under a blanket. “Why’re you here?”
“Why am I here? This is my apartment, Joela.”
“Why do you always call me that? Shouldn’t you be at mass?”
“If you looked at me, you’d see I am sick. Ailing is more of a proper term, actually. What are you doing for me? Oh, I don’t know, wasting my voice! Giving me a heart attack! I thought a spirit was opening my door.”
“Manny, you’re absolutely loco.”
“Stop stereotyping me and bring me the leftovers from the fridge.”
After Joel obeyed, he returned to sit at the edge of Manny’s feet. A program on the nearby TV advertised a special nose hair picker utensil. “Why are you sick? Aren’t you trying to help people from getting sick?”
“I don’t know. Actually, I am kinda hiding out from my parents. I went to mass, but not the traditional dinner. I’m not that sick. Just acting sick in case my tías show up with garlic.”
Joel stared at his friend. “You are so weird, you know that?” He handed him the leftovers.
“Why’re you over here?” Manny asked. “Something musta happened.”
“Yes, but I didn’t come here to talk about it. I came here to relax before work for a whole week.”
“Ah, the aquarium.” Manny had worked there part-time in the summer last year. “You’d think that would be the place to think, but it just isn’t.”
“Amen to that, brother,” Joel said.