Page 57 of Grinch Girl

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bella, how was I supposed to go?” I howled. “Greta had gotten her first diagnosis! Kelly had just fallen off the wagon again. Who was going to take care of them if I left?”

The words slipped out, mindless. I was feeling too much. I couldn’t get myself under control. I’d always known I’d completely lose it if we ever tried to talk. Which was why I’dnever confronted Bella before. Not that she’d ever called or been in town to give me a chance.

“Wait, what?” Bella asked, the shards of her voice getting slushy.

I pushed at the door so hard that the bell came flying off and hit the ground. I wanted to put my fist through the window on the door and exit in an explosion of glass, but I settled for screaming “Just leave!” at her as loudly as I could.

Chapter Seventeen

8 p.m.:I can’t stop thinking about you.

9:37 p.m.:What have you done to me, J-Bird? I’m walking into walls, daydreaming about you.

10:48 p.m.:Are you working tonight?

7:30 a.m.:Good morning. Given any thought to what you want to do on our date Saturday?

2:58 p.m.:I’m feeling quite ignored.

9:13 p.m.:Seriously, Jane—are you ignoring me?

Iput thebuzzing phone under a couch cushion and got down on the floor to pet Bruce. He looked at me with reproachful brown eyes. “I know,” I said. “I’m being a bitch.” But sometimes that’s what self-preservation looked like. Sure, maybe Nate did reciprocate my crush. He could probably afford crushes. He probably got a new one every couple of weeks.

I didn’t.

I caught sight of the bottle of hot sauce he’d given me, displayed in a place of prominence on my kitchen counter, and my chest began to ache. He was probably bewildered as to why I was ignoring him after our spectacular night together. But I’d seen him first thing the morning after and I was the furthest thing from his mind. So I knew he’d recover quickly. He’d get angry or he’d get bored or he’d get distracted by something else new and shiny. Most importantly? He’d get gone.

Bruce sighed woefully and licked my hand. He was way too good at reading the emotional undertones of the room, and he was clearly picking up on my depressing vibes. “It’s OK, buddy. December has got to end sometime.”

I frowned, realizing how often I muttered some version of that phrase aloud. “This shift will be over soon.” “Thank God summer is almost over.” “This winter is endless. I can’t wait for it to be over.”

Was this how I was going to spend my entire life? In segments I wished would be over?

Greta would be so ashamed of me.

Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling and thought back to the August after high school. I’d been so relieved to graduate in May. Bella and I worked our tails off that summer, trying to save as much money as possible for the coming year in Madison. We’d had three jobs each: waitressing, nannying for summer folks, parking boats at the public pier. Fourteen-hour days, six days a week.

In the few hours we weren’t working, Bella was saying the world’s slowest goodbye to Michael, and I was looking for Kelly. My mom dropped off the face of the planet that spring. She surfaced every few weeks at one of the town bars, but she hadn’t come to visit at Greta’s in months. I was old enough by then to recognize the signs. Kelly had been in and out of rehab before—paid for by Greta, a fact I was both grateful for and humiliated by.

“She’s hopeless,” I’d once snarled—after Kelly had broken into Greta’s shop and raided the shelves. “Don’t ever spend money on her again.”

“No one is hopeless, Jane,” Greta shouted right back at me. “No one.”

It was because I was working nonstop and distracted by Kelly that it took me so long to notice that something was wrong withGreta that summer. She hired twice as many staff at the shop as she normally did, which was odd given her usual control freak nature. She’d always been a bundle of energy, but now she was constantly fatigued in spite of going to bed early and napping. By mid-July, the skin under her eyes had taken on a constant bluish tint from exhaustion.

I gradually noticed that whenever I was with her for any length of time, she always found a reason to leave the room at some point, hand pressed against her abdomen. “Indigestion,” she shook it off. “Upset stomach, no big deal.”

She also took herself to a chiropractor for the first time in her life. “It’s not uncommon for a woman my age to have back pain,” she’d sniffed at me when I expressed concern.

She was also just a hell of an actress. She was still upbeat and singing around the house, cheerfully complaining about tourists, constantly asking Bella and me to look at the Target sales so we could make sure we had everything we’d need for our apartment when we moved to Madison. I noticed the fatigue, upset stomach and back pain—but it took me months to realize that it wasn’t normal for a relatively young woman to suddenly be hit with all these things at once. Longer still to convince her to make an appointment with her GP. “Fine, fine,” she’d huffed. “Just don’t go worrying Bella with this nonsense. She’s already dealing with a broken heart.”

A week before we were supposed to leave, I finally found the broken-down motel where Kelly was living. It was one step above a flophouse, and she was so drunk and high that she barely recognized me. When she did, she just smiled weakly and asked if I could give her some money. She was thinner than I’d ever seen her, the bones in her face creepily prominent. To her profound disappointment, I’d given her a bag of Big Macs instead of cash.

Then I’d driven home to Greta, wondering how to tell her that Kelly needed help yet again. Thank God Bella was working the late shift at the restaurant and we could have this shameful conversation in private. Thank God Greta would never tell Angela.I’ll work double shifts and send Greta money from Madison,I told myself, already feeling sick about the unfairness of drop-kicking Kelly’s problems at her and skipping town.

The house was dark when I arrived, so dark that I guessed Greta was over at Carol’s for cards or volunteering at some town shindig. But she wasn’t. She was sitting still at the kitchen table over a hot cup of tea that had gone cold in the strong air-conditioning. There was a blankness in her expression I’d never seen before, and it made me go cold too. My thoughts raced: Bella was OK—I’d just texted with her when I got out of the car. I hadn’t heard any sirens tonight, so there hadn’t been any sort of accident in town or on the lake.

Suddenly, I remembered her doctor’s appointment. But it had been weeks ago, and she hadn’t said a word.

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