The Families in Rossford

THE PRESENT YOU NEVER OPENED

CONTINUED

“Are you alright?” Lindsay asked her friend as they walked down the street toward the drug store.

“No, I am not alright,” Maris told her, pushing her hair out of her face. “I am fucking pregnant is what I am.”

“Hunter’s going to take this so badly.”

Maris stopped walking. Lindsay kept on, not paying attention until she was nearly fifteen feet away.

“Mare,” she said, turning around.

Maris caught up with her.

“You listen to me, Lindsay,” Maris said.

“Alright.”

“Hunter isn’t going to take this badly. He isn’t going to take it any way at all.”

Lindsay looked at her friend as if, should she stare long enough, by osmosis she would understand what the girl was trying to say.

“He’s never going to know,” Maris said flatly.

“You’re going to have—” and then Lindsay whispered, “You’re going to have an abortion.”

“No! God, I don’t even know where to get one, or how I could afford one. Or… Well, I don’t think I would get one.”

Maris looked more reflective, as if voicing this had made the idea a possibility. Then she said, “As far as I know, no. But I’m going to do something.”

As they walked into the drugstore, the first people they saw in the juice aisle were Elias and Bennett Anderson. 

“Hey…” Bennett began.

“Maris,” Maris supplied.

“I know,” Bennett told her. “Maris, this is my brother, Elias.”

“We’re twins,” Elias told her, shaking his hand.

“You’re joking,” Lindsay said.

“No,” Elias said. “We are twins.”

“I guess you don’t do everything together,” Maris told them, “because you weren’t at the party the other night.”

“Party?” Then Elias remembered: “No. No. I was at another party. A family thing.”

“Well, feel free to come to the next one,” Maris said to them both. “There’s one at Rick’s house next Monday. You both should totally come.”

“I don’t know,” Lindsay said. “They don’t look like Rick kind of people.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maris and Bennett said at the same time.

“If you’re talking about Rick Vasser,” Elias said, “I’m sure we’re cool enough for him.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lindsay said. “I mean, even I’m not a Rick kind of person.”

“What she means,” Maris supplied, “is that Rick is a bit wild. And I say that’s just a can of shit. You all come. In fact, you come with me.”

“Alright,” Bennett said.

“Huh?” Elias looked at him.

“We’ll be there.”

“In fact,” Maris continued, “we’ll pick you up.”

“Great,” Elias jumped in before his brother could say anything. “We’ll see you then, but for now, we’ve got to go.”

The dark haired boy pulled Bennett down the freezer aisle and Lindsay said, “I think that Elias doesn’t like you that well.”

Maris looked at her friend in irritation. “So what?”

“I was just say—”

“Besides,” Maris elaborated, “It’s not Elias I’m interested in.”

Lindsay thought for a moment, and then she said, “You like Bennett.”

“I like him better than I liked anyone else.”

“You’re going to ask him to date you?” Lindsay said after a moment. “In your condition?”

“Firstly,” Maris hissed, beginning to lose patience, “shut the fuck up about my condition. Which is knocked up. Secondly, no, I’m not trying to make a boyfriend out of him.”

Maris went through the store finding nail polish, nail polish remover, laughing at the family planning aisle cause it was too late for that, grabbing some Fritos and the generic aspirin for the headache Lindsay was giving her. On her way to the counter she saw Maggie Biggs.

“I know you,” Maggie said.

“I know you too. You’re the new girl, Maggie.”

“That’s right,” Maggie said.

“Well,” Maris said, “party this Monday at Rick Jarvis’s.”

“Cool,” Maggie was dark haired, very pretty and a little wicked, Maris suspected, and she liked that. “I’ll definitely be there.”

“And this is my friend, Lindsay.”

Lindsay actually curtseyed, and then felt really stupid.

“Actually,” Maris said, “What are you doing now?”

“I am just grabbing a few things to take back to the apartment and then,” she shrugged and made a face. “Day after Christmas, so…”

“Hang out with us!” Lindsay said.

Maris looked at Lindsay, and then turned to Maggie and said, “This is exactly what I was going to say. Only in a much more tasteful way.”

“Well,” Maggie told her, “tasteful or not, I’d love to hang out with you girls. But I need some cigarettes, first.”

“Maris smokes,” Lindsay said.

“Thank you, Lindsay,” Maris muttered, tiredly. “And right now, it’s probably not such a great idea.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” Maggie said, “bum some off of me. Come on girls. Let’s get out of here and find some shit to do.”

    

“Oh, my God, look at those dumb bitches,” Maggie said, pointing her burning cigarette to the young couple.

“Have you ever noticed that nowadays couples consist of some jumped up twat marching her dumbass boyfriend by the balls, and I swear it’s like he’s got nothing to say, he’s just there to be dragged around. He can’t fucking think and she can’t fucking be alone. Somewhere in the dark, five minutes happen and that’s how babies get born. Then, Mom’s a bitch and Dad’s still this dumb, confused motherfucker, and the world just keeps tick tock motherfucking going on.”

She took another drag on her cigarette, and exhaled, thinking of this.

“If men don’t hurry up and stop being losers, I’m going to die a virgin.”

“Well, I couldn’t wait,” Maris said.

With a raised eyebrow, Maggie looked at her new friend.

“I stopped waiting for boys to turn into men when I realized that was sort of bullshit. I wanted to have sex. So did Hunter, so we did.”

“Is Hunter a total douche?”

“Fuck yes,” Maris shook her head. “He’s got the IQ of a dildo.”

“That’s not fair,” Lindsay said, then added, “to the dildo.”

“Touché,” Maris said. “A rare attack of bitchiness from Lindsay McGovern.”

“Well, he deserves it,” Lindsay told her.

“Lindsay, are you usually sunshine and light?” Maggie said.

Lindsay didn’t answer. It was Maris who explained:

“She’s got the good father and the happy mother. She’d sort of be doing a disservice to her good Christian upbringing not to be sunshine and light.”

“What about you?” Lindsay said to Maggie.

Lindsay cleared her throat, and shook out her hair.

“My mother…? Is the aforementioned bitch who couldn’t be alone. My dad… I never even met him.”

Lindsay started to say, “Aww,” but had better sense than that, and Maris thought of her baby, but said only, “Maybe it’s better that way.”

“Maybe,” Maggie allowed. “But I can’t really believe that.”

Mr Fromm was unnerving the hell out Laurel Houghton, mainly because while they sped up Lake Shore Drive, he had the terrible tendency to look back directly at them, and ask questions, seeming to pay no attention to the road.

“So Melanie is well?”

“Very.” Maia had no idea how much she should tell Orthodox Jews about their lesbian cousin, but soon Anita Fromm said, “I hope she found a good Temple up where you guys live. She’d probably feel more at home there, being as she is.”

“There is one. There are a couple,” Maia said.

“Oh, that’s good. It’s all good for her,” Anita said. “She couldn’t take this kind of life. It would have driven her out of Judaism completely.

“She used to hate the mehitzah!” Mr Fromm said, slapping the wheel. “I remember she used to tell our grandfather that one day she would burn it down. The old man almost had a heart attack. He loved her, but she almost killed him.”

He shook his head and laughed, the car shaking with him.

The middle boy, with an oval face and oval round spectacles leaned over the seat and told Laurel and Maia, “My great-grandfather, your stepmother’s grandfather, was an old rabbi from Russia. He didn’t speak English at all.”

“He spoke a little,” the older boy, who had been giving Laurel unnerving glances, disagreed.

“Yeah,” said the young one, who Maia remembered was called Noach, “but they were all swear words.”

Laurel snorted while Anita Fromm shook her head and then asked, “Are you girls Jewish?”

“My father is,” Maia said. “But I never…” she found herself sounding apologetic and then she said, “You know what? I don’t even know.”

“Well, if your mother’s mother is—”

“I know all that,” Maia waved it off. “I mean, I don’t know if it means anything to me. I don’t know if I’m serious about it, and I never thought about that until now.”

“And you?” the oldest boy said to Laurel.

“I’m Catholic,” Laurel said. “When I’m anything.”

“I like Catholics,” the boy said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maia looked at him.

“Are you flirting with me?” Laurel said, baldly.

“Moshe,” his mother reprimanded.

Moshe shrugged and turned around. “All I said is I like pretty Catholics.”

“You did not say that,” Laurel told him. “And now I know you’re flirting.”

“He can’t help himself,” Mr Fromm said. “But just think about it. You’re a very pretty girl and a long time ago we were a lot darker. I would love to have a Black grandchild. All it takes is a little dip in the water, and you’re completely kosher.”

“Forgive my husband,” Anita said. “He…” she stopped. “There really isn’t any excuse. I was looking for one. There is none.”

Anita looked at Maia and said, “Jews can be pushy. Is that why you haven’t thought about where you stand?”

“It’s a lot of reasons,” Maia said. “One of them being I just turned sixteen.”

“Well, maybe you can think about it when you’re with us,” Mr. Fromm said.

“Melanie says that’s what you always say to reel people in and make them Orthodox.”

Mr. Fromm shook his head, but Noach said, “Well, now Dad, that is kind of true.”

“Noach!” Now Anita shook her head.

“I might by Jewish,” Maia said. “But I don’t think I’m Orthodox.”

The older boy, Moshe, who was still smiling at Laurel, turned from her and looking to Maia said, “No, I don’t think you are, either.”