Gretchen was at the base of the stairs, trying to repot what she could of the plant. “Your phone rang while you were in the shower.”
I took my phone out of my back pocket. My mother had called again. I closed it and put it back.
Gretchen was still looking up at me. Her hands were full of soil, the overturned plant by her knees.
“What?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“It wasn’t Tim.”
“Okay,” she said. But she kept her gaze on me, and I looked away first. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the mess around me, the overturned chair, the cigarette butts swimming in cups. Gretchen seemed calm, and that was reassuring. The party and my incredibly brief fling with Clyde probably seemed pretty tame in her mind. She went to parties where people did cocaine in bathrooms and had sex with strangers in the guest rooms, no big deal. But I didn’t. I wasn’t used to waking up feeling sick and achy and embarrassed. To me, this was a very big deal; and it would be a big deal to Tim. I would need to eat something soon. I felt sick.
I knelt on the floor beside her and cupped soil into my hands. “I’ll have to tell him myself,” I said. “Before.”
She nodded, still moving soil. “That would be considerate.”
“He’s going to break up with me.”
I waited for her to tell me this was not necessarily true. She did not. All around me, the soil was ground into the beige carpet.
“Well,” she said finally. “Maybe that’s what you wanted.”
I understood what she meant. I had performed my idiocy for an audience. What had I thought would be the result? She was right: some part of me that was scared and anxious had wanted to ruin things with Tim. But not all of me. Not now.
I dropped the soil into the pot and patted it around the base of the plant. It had suffered from its fall—one of its long leaves was bent behind it like a broken arm. I didn’t see how we would ever get all the soil out of the carpet. I looked up at the cathedral ceilings. The air smelled like cigarettes.
“I think I just really screwed up,” I said.
I worried she would laugh. She didn’t always read my face and voice so well. She sometimes thought I was serious when I was joking. She thought I was joking when I was not. But I must have looked so miserable that she knew not to laugh at me then. She only patted my arm, and then we got back to work.
When we were done, we carried the plant up the stairs, easing it back onto its wrought iron stand. We stood back and looked at it anxiously. It was okay. We’d repacked enough soil at its base so that it stood upright, and only a few of the long leaves looked crooked. I didn’t know what kind of plant it was. In my physiology class the previous semester, we had studied all kinds—fungi, moss, deciduous, and evergreens—dissecting stems and stamens, peering at cellulose under microscopes. The tests had been hard, but I’d liked what I was learning. Afterward, I’d looked at any kind of greenery with more awe and respect, having some understanding of all that was going on inside, all that xylem and phloem, all that constant regeneration so perfectly contained. Even on that achy, sad morning, I was especially impressed with Jimmy’s plant having survived its tumble down the stairs. It was still alive, shiny leaves extended, and therefore, under all that quiet greenness, it was working hard, and still growing.
My father and I got a booth by the window. “YA’LL COME ON IN!” was written in neon across the glass, the words encased in a cartoon bubble unreasonably placed over a drawing of a cow who was not only smiling, but wearing lipstick. We both ordered steaks. I was thinking that protein would help. My head no longer hurt, but I still felt foggy inside, my limbs tired and slow to respond. Between sips of soda, I smacked my lips together, moving crushed ice from cheek to cheek. Third Floor Clyde, I had to admit, had been a very good kisser.
“What are you doing with your mouth?” My father squinted at me from across the table. “You okay? You’ve been quiet this morning. Even for you.” He seemed more amused than worried. He