By Mary Durocher
My brother Leo was pulled out of the Mohawk River in early March. After Dad identified the remains by the peace sign tattoo on his shoulder, all he could say to Mom and I was that the ice had thawed too quickly this winter.
I kept hoping it’d all turn out to be a practical joke, like how as kids we hid in the supermarket aisles and our names were called out on the speaker. But Leo stayed dead. Mom and Dad stewed in their grief while taking time off work they couldn’t afford. That spring, I fell in love with Sophie Pelky who waitressed with me at Mac’s, a diner right outside of Cohoes that during the peaks of summer had a barbeque pit in the back.
On the morning of Leo’s memorial at our old high school, I sat in front of my mirror and remembered with a jolt that school administrators were planting a tree for him later. I slashed thick lipstick lines across the glass and threw the tube onto the floor, its plastic shell splitting down the middle. I didn’t clean it up before driving off to the diner.
Sophie waited for me in the gravel parking lot before our early bird shift. Leaning against her Toyota, she puffed on a Camel and regarded the far-off, blue mountain peaks. Before she said anything to me, I noticed a coffee stain underneath the name tag pinned to her uniform. I warmed at the thought of her sweet annoyance as she threw it in the wash nightly, praying it might come out.
“Morning, Allegra,” she said. She squashed the cigarette butt beneath her heel before we headed towards the diner’s silver doors.
“You know Harry’s gonna give you hell for that,” I said, motioning towards the stain like it was a birthmark I wasn’t supposed to see.
Harry, the head cook, was relentless in picking the meat off of Sophie’s bones. One day, she was too bitchy and too fat. The next, she was angelic as he dragged her to tailgating in abandoned lots with Mac, the owner. I often found her smoking in the bathroom, violating health codes with her lips twisted in disgust at his hounding.
“Let him,” she shrugged, while throwing her chestnut-colored hair up into a high ponytail. “What about you? Don’t tell me you’re working the full day.”
“I’m supposed to leave in a few hours,” I said, holding the door for her. “But I might just stay.”
“Allegra, don’t,” she said, tilting her head. “I really am sorry. I saw the segment about him on the news last night. He looked so…”
“Normal?” I asked as her cheeks erupted in patches of red. I hoped to soon be distracted by carrying piles of dirty dishes. Maybe then that news photo, of the two of us in a day trip to Lake Sacandaga, would dissipate with the fumes of onions and dish soap.
“I saw you girls loitering outside,” Harry called out from the back of the kitchen. “No one is paying you to chat.”
“Gotta focus on the morning rush, right, Allegra?” Sophie whispered as she pushed a strand of hair out of her face and started to wipe down the sticky tabletops with a wet rag. One slouching, retired man, Mr. Callahan came in and sat at the counter where I rearranged raspberry danishes in the plexiglass display case. He’d come in each morning and sit for two hours as I refilled his coffee.
“I’d drive all the way from Albany to see that pretty smile,” he said as I passed by, his chin resting in his hand.
“Hey, Mr. C, wanna stop being a flirt?” Sophie said, her words light but her tone fierce. She would’ve tackled him to the ground for me. I wanted to tell her how I carried the image of her at daybreak with me as I drove back down the long roads to the house. My parents and I would sit on the couch in silence, slathered in the T.V.’s blue light, and knowing I’d see her again carried me through the days. I’d never confess this. Really, we barely knew one another.
“Okay, okay,” Mr. Callahan grumbled, his focus settling on the T.V. in the corner. The local news was replaying the segment about Leo, reminding viewers of the time we’d be slouched in front of the high school. I stiffened as the news anchor mentioned the inevitable; he washed up at the first signs of spring.
“Table for four?” Sophie asked as the bell on the front door dinged and a young family clamored inside, their shoes tracking in bits of gravel and mud. I half-watched as I brewed a fresh pot of coffee.
“Yeah, hon,” a man with balding hair and an oversized Carhart jacket said. Behind him, a young woman in a hoodie dragged two tiny girls with uneven pigtails and pink overalls. Maybe they were twins. Impatient, I rang up Mr Callahan’s bill as he scooped the cash out of his pocket and huffed out the door. My phone kept buzzing in my back pocket but I let it go, not wanting to see.
“She’s not getting a sundae in the middle of the day,” the man said, leaning across the table. His voice dominated over the low hum of the T.V., making me alert.
“But it’s a Saturday,” the young woman objected.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” he said, slamming the palms of his hands against the table and making the cups of water tremble. I stood still, horrified, as he stormed out of the diner. Sophie emerged out of the kitchen with a banana sundae and a stack of Mickey Mouse pancakes. The young woman swayed with her head in her hands. The two girls were too composed, their faces blank. They’re used to it, I thought as I wiped down the counter.
“He’s not coming back in and I don’t…,” she stammered, unzipping her backpack to show Sophie it’s lack. “He has the cash.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sophie said, glancing back to make sure Harry wasn’t listening. “I’ll cover it.”
“No. We aren’t a fucking charity case,” she snapped, carrying the twin girls out back to whichever vehicle their father was fuming inside of. Sophie sighed, sliding into the booth, with her chin resting on her hands. She turned towards me. “Wanna share it? The ice cream’s gonna melt.”
“I guess you paid for it,” I said, going over and sitting down next to her. We took the two spoons and dug into the ice cream’s softness. The first bite gave me piercing brain freeze but I couldn’t stop digging in. I let her have the maraschino cherries, laughing at the ring of red that formed around her mouth.
“You got some syrup,” she said, dipping her thumb in a cup of water before reaching over and wiping off the chocolate syrup. Her touch lingered on my lip, and, as if it we’d done it before, she leaned in to kiss me.
Suddenly, I ceased to be Allegra Grisanti. Suddenly, life hummed again with alternatives, possibilities. No longer was I the waitress. No longer was I the community college dropout, a few credits short of an associate, when my brother vanished.
See, I wanted to argue with Leo, things can happen. Leo always pinned me as a sucker. He often reminded me of this when I found him lying in the driveway after going out with friends to the park. “Nothing ever changes, Allegra,” he’d tell me as I tried to sober him up with instant coffee, “the future is just working till we drop.”
“Sophie and Allegra, I’m gonna ask you again what you think I’m paying you for,” Harry demanded, emerging from the kitchen. He stood with his hands on his hips. Despite it being the beginning of the day, his white undershirt was stained with sweat and his hair sprouted up in exasperated tufts. We’d sometimes joke that he’d forsaken combs after his girlfriend and kid left a year ago. “Where’d that family go?”
“They got into a fight and left,” Sophie explained as we distanced ourselves from the booth and half-eaten food.
“Goddamn it,” Harry said, rubbing his eyes as he focused on the two spoons still stuck in the sundae. “Hold on, did you two have some it? Who told you to do that?”
“We paid for it, Harry,” I protested, hoping he’d go easy. When I was first hired, he’d play the oldies station on the radio in the kitchen and sing along with a powerful baritone. He’d say Sophie and I reminded him of his sisters in Buffalo. He used to make us shrimp baskets on the house after our shifts.
“Who told you to do that?” he repeated, turning towards Sophie. “You’re the last person who should be eating that crap. No one likes a fat girl, Soph, I’ve told you that a million times.”
“I paid for it,” she argued, her cheeks flushed at his casual cuts.
“And look at that stain,” he said, putting his hand right where the coffee stain sat on her uniform. She jerked away, bumping into me. “It’s like you pride yourself on being a slob.”
“Come on, Harry,” I begged.
“Why are you even here today, Allegra?” Harry said, shrinking slightly in shame. “Isn’t it your brother’s thing?”
“I like working,” I insisted, tugging at a thread on my uniform. “I’d rather be here.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head as he sulked back to the kitchen. I wished I had chucked the entire glass case of danishes at him. I wanted to see his clothes stained with raspberry frosting.
“He wouldn’t say it so often if it wasn’t true, right?” she muttered, tears splattered across her cheeks.
“Can I go back to your place after we get out?” I whispered, holding her face in-between my hands. She pushed against me at first, needing to understand why I’d bail but eventually she saw that I had no tidy explanation. All I knew was that I couldn’t go to the memorial. I wanted to be with her. I sent off a text to Mom that Harry insisted the diner needed me, that there was no way out. Maybe there wasn’t. The evenings of making boxed mac and cheese for Mom and Dad, my fingernails stained with yellow powder, were so constant it left me nauseous. Some nights, I was terrified to find myself bowed into believing in Leo’s idea of permanence. Would the dead be quicker to forgive if I was trying to escape their own convictions?
The afternoon sun was high by the time we emerged from the diner. Our shoulders tense and clothes splattered with kitchen grease; we didn’t say anything while getting into our cars. I didn’t turn on the radio as I followed her down back into Cohoes. My head was at ease, I was euphoric. She rented the ground floor of a Victorian two-family house coated in a ugly yellow and navy blue paint, unsteadily nestled next to the river. It was remarkable how silent we were as I followed her into her bare-bones space.
A map of the New York City subway system with curled corners was tapped above her twin mattress. Stacks of books on Adirondack hiking trails and herbal remedies were strewn across the scratched wooden floor. Enough dirty dishes were pilled in the sink that I tried not to stare.
Sophie didn’t offer me coffee or tea or even water before we shed our spoiled clothes. All at once, as she laid out on her cheap mattress. I held the indents of her hips in my hands, I kissed her collarbone, I took in the scent of her soap. I pressed myself as close as bodies permitted. It was damp and cold inside the house, so afterwards, Sophie rested on my chest while cradling my waist.
“I’ve already been waitressing for six years. Can you believe that shit?” Sophie said while staring up at the water-stained ceiling.
“We never would’ve met if you hadn’t kept with it,” I admitted, unable to recall the season we first met. When I started at Mac’s, I was consumed with commuting to Troy for classes, erratically seeing a girl from high school, and trying to make sure Leo was on track to graduate. Those bursts of busyness were alien to me now. Truly, there was only Sophie who burned through the dullness. Leo would’ve laughed at me for pinning my salvation on one person. He never believed in love like that, as if there was a choice.
“Don’t be sentimental, Allegra,” she scoffed, drawing back to grab a cigarette. “I’m not staying. Not for much longer, anyway.”
“Why?” I insisted, splitting into two. She stared at me as she smoked, unwavering in her resolve. She told me, calmly, that there were no family obligations to stick around for. Her mother had been a blank space since childhood. Her father had moved back to Montreal a couple years back. He’d bought a cabin up in the Adirondacks and that was where she was heading to. I’d never heard of the town so she showed me lush green photos of the High Peaks area. She was not worried about money: she’d sell vegetables at the Plattsburgh’s farmers market or take on seasonal gigs. Before I could interject, she proposed that I too leave the sting of Harry’s remarks, the blanched pharmacy aisles, and the tired call of our lives.
I didn’t respond to her offer, irritated at her indifference to Mom and Dad. I slipped on my clothes and willed myself into saying my mind wasn’t made up. As I drove back to the house, I tried to not think about the last message Leo sent me before he died: “I will not conform.” The text I dismissed as a stray, stoned thought. All of the lights were off were shut when I swung into the driveway. No one was home. I ran straight to my bedroom, locked the door, and took two melatonin gummies.
I dreamt terribly that night. Right after Leo was found, I had vivid dreams of being at Falls View Park and looking down at him as be sunbathed on one of the stones jutting out of Cohoes Fall. We’d watch one another without saying anything. Maybe, I thought after waking up, he’s finally somewhere peaceful. That night, though, was different. Leo stood directly in front of me, comically covered with sludgy algae. He looked inpatient.
“Do you remember when we were kids, Allegra?” he said. “We’d go to the park with Mom and Dad and you’d get so freaked out about the slugs frying in the sun on the pavement.”
“You were so mean to me about that,” I said.
“I was,” he sighed, adjusting the strands of algae. “Do you still read our horoscopes, Allegra? Tell me that you do, please.”
No, why would I? I thought, already awake with the sheets sweated-through and twisted around my ankle. Out of sleep, I remembered Leo picking at a bowl of cereal as he read the Aquarius and Pisces predictions of the day to me. The sharpness of the memory made me huddle in bed, calling out sick for my shift, and dodging Mom’s worried quizzing. I couldn’t explain that I was in mourning. I didn’t have to read anything to know what I was going to do.
Sophie and I didn’t leave for the cabin immediately. We kept waitressing at Mac’s while hiding our plans from Harry. We kept cojoining on her mattress after our shifts. Afterwards, we’d sit in fold out chairs on the back porch, smoking her Camels. I often envisioned the two of us in future Julys, plucking ripe cherry tomatoes and weeding a wild garden.
I refused to comprehend what this would do to Mom and Dad until it was too close and I was forced to. In April, Dad began to buy subs and heat up frozen pizza without me. The photos of Leo were stuffed in a drawer. This was also when Sophie packed the car with dry goods and supplies. You ready? she texted me one night in late April as I watched T.V. with Mom and Dad. I peeled myself off the couch and shut myself in my room.
As I rushed to shove clothes into suitcase, I barely noticed Mom cracking the door open. She stood in the doorway, expressionless, and didn’t demand to know what I was doing. Instead, she turned away as she shut the door. I sat cross-legged on the carpet, guilty and desperate by my need to be anywhere else, to follow Sophie, to get away from the sound of my my brother’s knuckles rapping underneath a sheet of ice. In the end, on the night I left I put a long letter with the cabin’s address on the kitchen table.
I met Sophie a little after midnight, on a country road outside of Mechanicville. She was parked on the side of the road, her window rolled halfway down. Across the road was a small trailer park indented into the woods. I could smell the nicotine and hear bits of a Gillian Welch song as I approached the car.
“Where have you brought me?” I laughed, leaning against the window. She didn’t respond as she stepped out to meet me.
“Just trust me,” she said, grabbing a box cutter out of her corduroy jacket. She took my hand, starting to drag me across the road. “And keep quiet.”
“What are you doing?” I insisted. We crouched down in front of a trailer on the edge of the enclave with the lights still on. I flushed as I noticed inside was Harry. He was spread out on a salmon-colored couch, Utica Club cans on the coffee table and the T.V. blaring. In such a comprised perspective, he looked small.
“What do you think he deserves?” she whispered as she swiveled towards his truck. She stabbed the box cutter into the tire’s meat, creating frenzied slashes. It was impossible to watch the tire deflate; all I could see was her frightening determination. “Do you dare me to go inside, Allegra?”
“No, no,” I said, tugging on her arm. She resisted my pull and continued towards the trailer, and a surge of rage filled me as I tackled her onto the ground. How dare she risk it? We were so close.
“What are you doing?” she asked me, her mouth curved downwards as I grabbed the box cutter from her and tossed it into the grass. I held her face in my hands, I kissed her hard. How was I now realizing that her presence, which I’d grown so warm to, was one of a stranger’s? Harry too was just a man sleeping man on his couch, as formless to me as anything else.
“Sophie, we’re leaving,” I said. A dog had begun to bark, I imagined it straining against its chained.
“That could’ve been amazing,” she said as we ran across the road. I climbed back into my car, leaving her oblivious to my fright or my hidden dry heaves into a plastic bag before we drove off. I turned up The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust as loud as I could stomach as I trailed her into the Adirondacks. While singing along I lost all of my cell reception.
We took an abnormally long time getting there. We even drove past the town to stock up on supplies in Plattsburgh. One night, at a motel off of the interstate, we smoked on the concrete balcony with our knees drawn up to our chest. We spoke of the many things we desired, like yarn blankets for our bed and herbal tinctures harvested from our garden.
None of it turned out that way, but that’s not the point. The point is that was the beginning because, as Sophie lit up her second cigarette, I started to sob. Sophie attempted to comfort me, she kept asking if I was hiding regret or unhappy with her. I think she was frightened by my outburst. She looked at me as if I wasn’t her Allegra at Mac’s. I didn’t know what to tell her. She was my ecstatic lifesaver, my brazen instincts followed through. This would give me more happiness than imagined. Yet, I was unable to stomach that soon summer would be returning. The mud would harden again, the seeds would sprout, and I’d find it easier to breathe high up in the mountains. Leo would never be there with me. All I said to Sophie, which she never understood, was that life really is unforgivable.