Cleaning up Glitter

Practically Nothing

Elizabeth Markley

The problem with Calhoun County is the way people say it. It just sounds so redneck. Most residents, even those with patently flat Midwestern accents, elongate the second syllable until it sounds like they are from a Southern plantation, and not the cold plains of Lower Michigan. I remember studying the map in elementary school and discovering that other counties in our state had such beautiful names - St. Claire, or Presque Isle, or Isabella. Even whimsical Kalamazoo would be better. It doesn’t help that Calhoun is an utterly unremarkable shape, identical to the uniformly square counties that surround it. Someone very organized or OCD must have been in charge of divvying up the land all those years ago. The Lower Peninsula appears to have been neatly sliced with a knife, like a sheet cake at a child’s birthday party.

Despite the name, Calhoun is not such a bad place to live. It has lots of open space and a simple, Midwestern beauty. I disparage it because I’m ashamed that I haven’t summoned the courage to live anywhere else. I was born here twenty-five years ago, and here I have remained. This was not the plan. Though, to say that implies there was a plan, and the very fact that I live with my grandparents means there was not. I mean, I had vague notions of success – become a musician, sell my songs, buy a big house – but not a sensible road map to get there. When I took my job six years ago it was nothing but a stopgap measure. I was nineteen, had just quit community college, and I needed some cash while I figured things out. This is a phrase the waiters at work use a lot. Not many people set out to sling beer and wings for a career. Even the lifers, the servers who have been here for fifteen, twenty years are still in the process of figuring things out.  

I read somewhere that the universe tends towards highest entropy. Without direction or intervention things just gradually decline into disorder, and this is what happened to my life. There were no parents to make me study for the SAT, to ground me when I stayed out drinking. This was an unimaginable luxury for a teenage boy, though I occasionally longed to see someone sitting in the stands when I was in the drum line. And then, later, it would have been nice if somebody talked me out of quitting marching band. But my father, the person who should have been there to dissuade me, was long gone. 

He left when I was seven years old. You would think seven years would allow for plenty of detailed memories, but all I can recall is a brown-haired man with a quiet laugh. My mom disappeared too, but in a different way. When I was in eighth grade she got into a car accident, and that I remember. I considered it lucky that my mom walked away with only a few stitches, though I slowly came to understand that the real damage was unseen. My mother started sleeping upright in a chair in the living room. I would often come home from school to find her not at the car dealership, where she was an office manager, but sitting on the couch, a heating pad wedged beneath her. After a few months she stopped going to work entirely, and then when I came home there always seemed to be an open bottle of wine on the counter. 

It wasn’t long before the wine turned into other things. She started on painkillers to help her back, she said. She told me she was in control; she told me it was just one a day. But even I knew that was a lie. Once the pills fully took hold my mom became a hollowed-out version of herself. She would look at me across the kitchen table with a vacant expression, as if she didn’t recognize me. Things came to a head at the end of my junior year. That’s when we lost the house. We moved in with my grandparents and then, just as quickly, my mom moved back out. There was a job in Columbus, she said. I don’t know about the job, but I’m pretty sure there was a man, the owner of the ancient truck that would sometimes idle in our driveway.

My grandparents, in their seventies at that point, adjusted to the situation with a sort of surprised acquiescence. I moved into the basement, which had its own separate door leading up to the driveway, and from then on the entropy only increased. I settled in with friends who were just like me. A crowd that, in hindsight, could simply be described as lost. But I didn’t hate school, not entirely. I liked English and loved music, and I learned enough guitar to start a garage band and write songs about a girlfriend I didn’t have.

I was not friends with Jennifer or Brody in high school, even though we were in the same graduating class. They were both much more popular than I was. Jennifer was a hot cheerleader, Brody a mediocre athlete whose rich dad made up for any shortcomings. We talk about how funny this is, since we’re so close now. Life is random like that. We became friends because we work at the same sports bar. This is the primary reason, at least. The secondary reason, the one we don’t acknowledge, is that we are each in a holding pattern, and together we watched as our classmates moved on. They moved away, literally, but they also moved on in the way you’re supposed to in your mid-twenties – finishing college, starting a career, getting married. That is what’s supposed to happen, but here we are, the three of us, partying like we’re still nineteen.

We all reached this point in our own way. Jennifer’s problem, I think, is that she was too pretty to have to try hard. She is the opposite of a farmer’s daughter, that wholesome kind of beauty you find at the state fair. She is tall with long dark hair and sparkling brown eyes. While Brody and I have to wear dorky collared shirts with the restaurant’s logo, Jennifer has the option to wear a tight referee shirt and miniscule black shorts. When she works the bar in this outfit, she gets more tips than Brody and I combined. I know she has plans - move to Chicago, audition to be a Bears dancer, try her hand at modeling – but I’ve never once seen her do anything to try and make these things happen. She probably says the same thing about me though. How I drone on endlessly about moving out of my grandparents’ house and enrolling somewhere to study music. 

Brody, for his part, doesn’t give any lip service to ambition. This is ironic, since he easily has the best shot of making something of himself. But I think he would be content to wait tables and smoke weed for the rest of his life. While this may be all Brody wants to do, he is smart enough to know how much this would disappoint his father. Everybody knows Brody’s dad. He owns several businesses, including a massive factory that makes pipes or insulation or something industrial like that. Even when factories across the state were shuttering, Brody’s father was making news as a Capitalist sensation. The Miracle of Manufacturing, the headline read. 

I probably never would have spoken to Brody, or Jennifer for that matter, had they not come around looking for work. Our sports bar is just south of downtown Battle Creek, in an unremarkable strip mall. I started the summer I turned nineteen, Jennifer the summer after that, and Brody the summer after that when, rumor has it, he was kicked out of Michigan State for plagiarizing a term paper. More than work, however, the thing that unites us is a shared desire to get wasted.

We pursue this with a single-minded determination. Jennifer likes the uppers, the ones that suppress her appetite and make her break into dance. Brody and I, we like things that slow us down. That’s how he got into trouble with painkillers. Although, unlike my mom, he wasn’t injured in the slightest. I asked him once why he liked pills so much. He looked at me and then said thoughtfully, “It’s like, you feel like something good just happened.”

“Is that helpful?” He asked. 

“Sort of,” I replied. 

“You need specifics,” he said. “I got it. Here’s the deal. When I’m on them I feel like my dad isn’t pissed at me. I feel like I just did something good instead of screwing up. And then, I like, forget he’s even there. I just feel empty and happy.” 

That’s the thing about Brody. I should hate him with a passion. He has everything I don’t – parents, resources, even an older brother and sister, the very siblings I wanted when I was a lonely only child. But it’s really hard not to like him. He’s honest and all he wants in life is to fucking chill man.

We could have carried on like this forever, I think. Working, partying, sleeping until noon, and then waking up to do it all again. I made a deal with myself. If I was destined for something else, if fate had determined that I needed to move on, then the universe would send me a sign. This seemed like a fair bargain. I would be on the lookout for the sign, but if the universe didn’t send one, well then I could keep things going as they were. Brody and Jennifer too – they appeared to be fine with the status quo. Maybe we would have continued this way in perpetuity. Maybe we would have ended up as lifers ourselves, if only Brody hadn’t gotten himself hooked on pills. 

I’d been noticing for several weeks that Brody was acting differently. Sketchier than normal, sneaking out during his break to meet unfamiliar cars in the parking lot. He lost some weight, and started showing up for work looking exhausted. And then today he didn’t show up at all. 

I ask the manager to let me go and check on him. Jennifer talks her way into this adventure too, so we take my car and drive out to Bedford. Body still lives at home, though I’ve never actually seen his parents’ house. It’s not that Brody doesn’t want to have us over. He tried to explain it once - how he was just protecting us, how it wouldn’t be fun anyway. Not with his parents, the world’s biggest buzzkills, sniffing around.  

Jennifer is chewing her nails and fidgeting in the passenger seat. She is clearly worried, and in a way I don’t see very often. At some point, maybe around two years ago, Jennifer and Brody started having sex. They dated briefly, then they stopped, and then they started again. It’s gotten to the point where I can never actually tell if they’re dating or not.

“Turn here,” Jennifer says, pointing towards a heavily wooded area.  

“Are you sure?”

“I dropped him off a couple of times,” Jennifer says. 

“What’s his house like?” I ask, but she only shrugs. 

“No idea,” she says. “He got out at the gate.”

We arrive at said gate, an elaborate wrought-iron thing that is shut tight against any interlopers. I position my car next to the small speaker, and hit the button. The speaker emits a high-pitched beep, though no human voice reaches us. I talk to the box, feeling like an idiot. 

“Uh, yeah, hi,” I say. “We’re from Brody’s work. We were sent to make sure he’s ok.”

Again there is no reply, but a few moments later the gate opens. We pull into a circular driveway, round a fountain, and stop before a massive oak door. Jennifer and I can only stare at the brick house in silence. It looks like something from a music video, three stories high, with an attached garage that can hold five cars. Before we even unbuckle our seatbelts, the front door opens and a skinny blonde woman comes down the stairs. She motions to roll down the window and approaches Jennifer’s side. 

“Hi there,” she says in a neutral tone. “I’m Brody’s mother.”

Jennifer says, “Is Brody ok? He didn’t show up for work.”

“Yes,” his mom says, “he’s fine. I apologize, we should have called the…restaurant. He won’t be returning to work.”

“Like, today?” Jennifer asks.

“Not for the foreseeable future, I’m afraid.” 

“Why not?” Jennifer asks, in a blunt tone that makes Brody’s mother bristle.

“It’s a family matter,” she replies.

“Well, can we see him?” Jennifer asks. “We’re his friends.”

The front door is still open, and I catch a glimpse of a glistening marble foyer. A giant split staircase leads to the second floor. I can’t imagine Brody, smelling of stale beer and hot sauce, coming home from work to this. 

“He’s not here,” his mom says.

“Where is he?” Jennifer asks. 

Brody’s mom sighs, takes in my beat-up car and Jennifer’s tiny shorts, and says, “His father and I sent him to get treatment for certain issues. Now I’m sorry, I have to get inside.”

She disappears into her mansion and, with nothing left to do, I slowly drive away. Jennifer lights a cigarette, takes a long drag, and hands it to me. 

*

Operationally, the loss of Brody at the restaurant is absorbed in an instant. The manager just rejiggers the schedule, and it’s like Brody was never there. But Jennifer and I - we feel his absence acutely. I didn’t realize how small my world had become. Brody was the catalyst, I’m quickly coming to understand, the person that all our coworkers rallied around. Jennifer is realizing this too. We make half-hearted attempts to go out, but it doesn’t feel the same. After a particularly long night, about two weeks into Brody’s absence, I can’t summon the energy to go out with the rest of the servers. 

As we’re closing I take Jennifer by the arm and say, “Hey, let’s get away from these people.” 

My grandparents are out of town, a rare overnight trip to visit my aunt, so we pick up a case of beer and drive the ten miles to my house. Even though my grandparents are away we go directly to the basement, and settle in front of the TV. I put on a sitcom, one that I know Jennifer likes, but after a few minutes she gets up and makes a circuit of my room. She stops in front of my guitar.

“Nice,” she says. Then she picks it up and asks, “Play for me?”

I oblige and play a few songs, the trite hits that white guys always play at parties. But Jennifer doesn’t seem to mind. She gets another beer and settles down on the couch next to me. I keep singing, but I have no idea if I sound good. All of my attention is focused on Jennifer’s lithe body, lounging next to mine. She moves closer, and I stop playing and face her. This seems to be all the indication she needed. She runs a hand down my leg and inches even closer. 

“What about Brody?” I ask. 

“What about him?” She says. “He’s the one who fucking left us.” 

I can’t argue with that logic. What’s more, I don’t want to.

*

A few weeks pass and then suddenly, Brody is back. After his stint in rehab he is ready to face the world clean and sober. Or, sort of sober. It becomes clear after a few days that Brody is just staying off pills. Rehab definitely helped him though, and he’s back to his old self. Along those lines, he and Jennifer have taken up again. As soon as he returned Jennifer took him under her wing. Whatever uncertainties there were before, they are definitely dating now. We didn’t speak about it, but it’s understood that neither one of us will tell Brody about the night we spent together. 

Everything should be peachy, back to normal. But something is off about Jennifer. At first I thought she was acting aloof because of what happened, but it’s much worse than that. She’s putting forth a noble effort, but she can’t hide it entirely. She’s been showing up to work pale and exhausted, and the first thing she does is drink a ginger ale. And just a moment ago I watched as she pretended to take a shot with the other servers. She lifted her glass in cheers, and then poured her shot down the sink when the others were distracted. I corner Jennifer on break and make her come outside with me. There is no right way to say it, so I just let it out. 

“You’re pregnant,” I say. 

I expect her to deny this, but she only looks over the parking lot and says, “Yup.” This response takes all the wind out of my sails.

“Is it?” I pause awkwardly. “You know. Mine?” 

She doesn’t answer. But in her silence I hear everything I need to know. 

“I thought you were on the pill,” I say. 

“Why would you think that?” She hisses. 

“I don’t know. Then why didn’t you stop me? Why didn’t you say anything?” 

I know the answer. Because she was feeling reckless and lonely and buzzed. Just as I was. 

“Does Brody know?” I ask. 

She shakes her head.

I go to the clinic with Jennifer the following week. It’s a public clinic, run by Calhoun County, and the waiting room is chaotic. It’s all wrong, but I don’t have health insurance and, since we’re here, I’m pretty sure Jennifer doesn’t either. I sit by her side when they tell her how far along she is. Eight weeks. I listen intently as the nurse explains how it all works. Then I do the math. There is no way around it. 

Throughout this, Jennifer maintains an eerie sort of calm. I’m the one who is freaking out. All of a sudden this isn’t a vague, abstract notion. In eight months, give or take, we will have a child that will need bottles, and diapers, and car seats, and clothes, and God knows what else. We sit in my car after the appointment and Jennifer listens as I list all of the things a baby requires, my tone growing more hysterical with each item.  

“Look,” she says, “don’t lose it. Let’s just, sleep on it or whatever. Just don’t do anything rash.”

By the following afternoon I have collected myself, and I text Jennifer and ask her to come over. I’m tired, but also buzzing with excitement. I didn’t fall asleep until four in the morning. I smoked a joint in my car, and then in my stoned, contemplative state, I realized something. This was the sign. The sign from the universe. The one that I’ve been waiting for, the one that means I need to get my life together and make some major changes.

I spent the rest of the night composing a speech. I didn’t write it down or anything, but I went over it so many times I have it memorized. I’m waiting for Jennifer in the living room. My grandparents are playing bridge, which should keep them out of the house for a while. I can’t sit still so I take to prowling the room, and stop only when I hear Jennifer’s car pull into the drive. She walks in and I guide her toward the couch, exactly where I pictured her sitting all those times I rehearsed my speech. 

And then, I begin. It starts sappy, about how my dad was never there. About how, because of this, I’ve always wanted to be the dad who is involved in their kid’s life. This cheesy beginning is necessary, because it’s going to pay off later, in the crescendo. But I don’t get to the end. In fact, I make it a bare minute before Jennifer interjects. 

“Stop it,” she says. “Just stop.” 

It’s her tone, so flat and colorless, that makes me pause, more than her words. 

“I can’t listen to this,” she says. “I’ve already made up my mind.”

“You’re not going to…” 

I trail off, unable to finish the sentence.

“No,” she says. “I’m not going to have an abortion. But we can’t raise this baby.” 

She stands abruptly, seems to think the better of this, and then plops back onto the couch. Then she takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m going to tell Brody it’s his.”

I falter. Of all the options she could have put forth, this is the last thing I was expecting. 

“What?” I ask.
“The timing works,” she says. “Not that Brody would even care about learning all that stuff. The weeks and the counting and all that. But we got together pretty fast after he came home.” 

I walk into the kitchen and take one of my Granddad’s beers from the fridge. Then I come back into the room and say, “No.”

“It’s the only way,” she says. 

“You can’t do that to me,” I say. “Or to him. You can’t make him raise another man’s child. That’s fucked up.”

“No,” she replies. “What’s fucked up would be having this kid on Medicaid. Which is what’s going to happen, you know that right? The shittiest healthcare for me and the baby. Is that what you want?”

“No,” I say, and I begin a rebuttal but she interrupts again. 

“And after the hospital,” she says, “what then? I take a baby home to my apartment? With my sister who does coke in the living room?” 

“We could bring the baby here,” I say. “This will be my house. One day,” I add.  

“Right,” she says. “One day. And until then we just, do what? Raise a kid in the basement? And who is going to babysit while we go to work?”

The vitriol drains from her voice then. Maybe she can read the conflicting emotions on my face. 

Her tone becomes gentle, and she says, “This is the best possible chance for this kid. You know that. I know that. Brody is a good person.”

“You mean he has a good rich family that you can lie your way into,” I spit back. 

This insult rolls off her, as she looks at me and asks, “You really think you can provide a better life?”

I don’t answer and Jennifer takes both of my hands.

She says, “You have to listen to me. This kid – I could actually give him a chance. A chance to do more than, you know, work at a sports bar for the rest of his life. We don’t have any other option.”

*

I know that she has told him. There is a change in Brody over the weekend. He starts walking around with a dazed expression and won’t let Jennifer lift the heavy trays. I can’t stand being at work, so I tell my manager I’m going on vacation. He’s mad at the short notice, but oh well. I tell everybody I’m going fishing for a week, and that I won’t have cell service. I don’t go fishing. I stay in my basement, watching movies and eating pizza and wondering how my life turned into this clusterfuck. I always thought I was a decent person, but here I am, pawning my own child onto my best friend. I guess the universe wasn’t sending me a sign after all. 

I drag myself back to work and the first person I see, of course, is Brody. He is leaning against the hostess stand and lights up when I approach.

He says, “Finally, you’re back. I, uh, have some news. But I wanted to tell you in person.” 

He’s going to tell me that Jennifer is pregnant, and I prepare myself even as I feel my stomach turning over. But at that moment Brody’s mom and dad walk through the door. Something else is going on, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to perform an elaborate show of surprise and excitement. 

“Speak of the devil,” Brody says, even though we weren’t talking about anyone. 

“Listen,” he says, “before it gets crazy. It’s my last day here. I have to quit. I’m going to work in my dad’s office.” 

He’s looking at me, waiting for my reaction. I blink, and then plaster a smile across my face, but Brody isn’t buying it. 

“Look, you’ll still see me,” he says, trying to be reassuring. “But it’s time, you know? To be a little more responsible. Gotta join the family business and all that.” 

A small crowd has formed in the entrance, and it propels us around the corner. Brody puts an arm around me, and we walk into the main room together. And there it is. The sign.

I guess it’s a banner, technically. It’s huge, as long as the bar, and says: Congratulations Brody! As if he’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, and not the beneficiary of blatant nepotism. The universe could not be more clear. Here is the sign. And it’s telling me to go. 

“I’m really going to miss you guys,” Brody says. 

“Me too,” I say. “But I think it’s for the best.” 

And I really mean that.

I don’t stay for the party. I make an excuse and leave early, not that anyone cares. When I left Brody was surrounded by his friends and family, so I simply walked out the front door. I go to my house. I pack three suitcases. I talk to my grandparents. I fill up my gas tank and pray my car will last a few more months. And then I drive south. 

*

It’s a girl. I find this out on social media. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I guess every time I thought about it I pictured a boy. But there she is, a seven-pound bundle nestled in Jennifer’s arms. Brody is standing next to Jennifer, his arm wrapped around his wife and new daughter, the same dazed expression on his face. They got married a few months ago. I also saw this on social media, though Brody did text me about the small ceremony. He asked if I could drive up but I said that I had to work. I was terrified I would give something away. I imagine our secret to be like a bomb, strapped to us at all times. Something that has to be handled with the most delicate care, or we risk an explosion that could take us all out. Maybe Jennifer feels the same way. Maybe that’s why we haven’t spoken since the day of the party.

In any case, I did have to work. I was hired at a coffee shop on the West Side of Chicago. It’s a far cry from the bar and the tips are atrocious, but at least nobody snorts Adderall in the bathroom. My coworkers are mostly students, and after work they stick around to study and use the free Wi-Fi. I’m a student too, by some miracle. Well technically I’m a part-time student, but if you saw me walking on campus, with my notebook so carefully labeled “Music Composition 101,” you wouldn’t know the difference. 

I stare at the picture a minute longer. And it occurs to me. Some secrets really do stay buried. Maybe most. Deep down, I know that Brody is never going to question anything. So what if our secret isn’t like a bomb at all? I picture it floating out there will all those billions and trillions of other undiscovered secrets. Why, our little lie is practically nothing, a tiny pinprick, a single star hidden in the vastness of the galaxy. Then I pack my bag, put on my uniform, and go to work.

© 2020 Elizabeth Markley

About the Author

Elizabeth Markley is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has been previously published in The Write Launch, The Mighty Line, Cleaning Up Glitter, The Feminine Collective, Haunted Waters Press, Castabout Literary Magazine, and the Raw Art Review. When she is not writing she is kept busy by her children, two rambunctious boys under the age of four