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A Novel
by Alison Espach
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"What did he say about your hair?" I asked.
I was starting to learn that I did not have the right kind of hair. It was nothing like yours, which dried straight out of the shower. Mine was curly, hard to control, like one of those evil cartoon trees that pull people in with their branches when they get too close. That's what Rick Stevenson said on the bus, anyway, just before he told me all about his chinchilla at home, the one that had recently started to eat its own babies.
"I don't know," you said. "Billy didn't specify."
After the dance, you started talking to me about Billy all of the time at night. But you never spoke to him at school.
"What would I even say?" you wondered.
I was surprised you'd ask me—what did I know about speaking to boys then? I could hardly even speak to my own grandmother and grandfather when they sat on our couch during Christmas. I would quietly pick at the hem of my dress, while you asked them questions about their old coal stove and all the milk that used to arrive at their doorstep in bottles. You accepted their gifts with an enthusiasm I couldn't fake. "Thank you so much for the Make-Your-Own-Bubble-Gum kit," you said to Grandma like you meant it, and I was in disbelief. Were we actually excited about making our own bubble gum? I couldn't tell. You were so good—a natural, Dad said once, after we watched you be Peter Pan in Peter Pan.
But talking to Billy was not as easy for you.
"Billy's in fifth grade," you said. "And he's going to be a famous basketball player one day. That's what all the teachers say."
So you just watched him from afar, paid close attention to him at recess. Collected information to bring back to me each night. Listed off all the things Billy liked: Pepperoni pizza. The Chicago Bulls. Praying mantises. And his dad, who had recently broken his neck.
"It's really tragic," you said. Then you told the story as if you had been at Bill's Tree and Garden when Billy's dad fell off the ladder. "He must have fallen twenty feet through the air, Sally! It was crazy! He cracked his spine in two places."
"Is he going to die?" I asked.
I couldn't imagine someone breaking their neck and not dying. I imagined Billy's father's neck, bent at a right angle.
"No," you said. "He'll be fine. But still. It's really scary. I mean, who knew being a florist was so dangerous?"
I remember you sounded proud for some reason, like you had broken your own neck.
* * *
You told me so much about Billy that by the time I actually saw him, it felt surreal. We stepped out of Dad's car and onto the parking lot of Bill's Tree and Garden, and you clutched my arm like you did whenever we saw a fox in the woods.
"It's Billy Barnes," you whispered.
We knew foxes lived here, but we were always surprised to see one in our yard. It was Connecticut. It was the suburbs. We lived one street away from a Dunkin' Donuts. We never expected to be so lucky, to be in the right place at the right time. In the same parking lot where Billy was moving small white trees out of a van.
Dad went inside to get marigolds for the mailbox, but we stood quietly by the entrance. We plucked petals off a nearby rosebush, pretended like we weren't watching him, but we were, of course. We were studying him very closely, though now it's hard to remember much about the moment. All I can picture is his hair, so thick and brown, like it was made of plastic. Like he was one of my Fisher-Price toys.
"What are you still doing out here, girls?" Dad said when he returned with two pots of gold flowers. The moment was over.
Excerpted from Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach. Copyright © 2022 by Alison Espach. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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