Read Online You Take It From Here by Pamela Ribon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Pamela Ribon
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somewhere in the sky, sobbing in the bulkhead. Tiny purple fingers wiping away tiny purple tears. I made your mother put you on the phone, just so I could ask, “Where are you right now? And has your mother packed any kind of suitcase? Do you see one, Jenny? Look carefully.”
One time Smidge called in the middle of the night so hysterical I was immediately terrified someone had died.
It was two in the morning West Coast time—meaning four her time—and she was shouting into the phone, “I don’t know where I am! I’m lost and sad and I need you to come and get me!”
I was fifteen hundred miles away. Which 911 do you call for that? Mine? Hers? If hers, how exactly do you dial some other city’s 911? Only because of Smidge have I had to ponder such questions. When normal people have an emergency, their first response isn’t to call the one person who at that moment is at the absolute farthest point.
“Smidge!” I shouted back as I wandered through my dark bedroom. I made a vain attempt to find something to pullover myself, meaning some sleepy part of my brain knew there was a slim chance I might have to walk straight out of my apartment and drive to wherever she was. “Where are you?” I asked.
What Smidge lacked in tears she made up in volume. “I don’t knoooooooow !” she wailed. “Everybody’s mean here and they won’t let me driiiiiiive hooooooome !”
This is when I stopped looking for a pair of pants and started looking for a glass of wine.
“Who’s everybody?” I asked into the phone, my confusion making me sound like an old, lost lady. “Where are you? What is happening?” I tried to keep from sounding too judgmental as I asked, “Are you drunk?”
The missing answer in her answer told me all I needed to know. “This party is the worst!” she shouted. “Everybody here is an asshole and they’re all laughing at me right now.”
“Where is Henry?”
Then the skritch-shluck! of a phone sliding down someone’s shoulder filled my ear. Smidge returned even louder, sounding like a walkie-talkie wired straight to my brain. “Who cares?” she shouted. “I told him if he didn’t give me the keys, we were getting a divorce, and he didn’t give me the keys so I hate him and that’s it. The end.”
Most likely Henry was standing right there, listening to her diatribe, Smidge’s keys safely hidden in his left palm.
“Can you describe where you are right now?” I asked, like she was a little boy trapped in a cave or a well. Like I’m talking a trauma victim through a hypnotherapy session.
“Some guy’s house,” she said. “He can’t decorate for shit.He’s got stuffed monkeys on his shelves. What kind of psychopath decorates with baby toys?”
“Well, I guess I can see why you’re so upset.”
“ Thank you. Now come get me.”
“I can’t come get you, Smidge.”
She began her tearless wails again, her voice raising an octave as it warbled, “Then you aren’t a very good friend and I hate you.”
Hatechoo. That’s how she says it. Like a vicious sneeze.
She wouldn’t remember it in the morning, but I would never forget it. As drunk as she was, and as little as she meant she hated me, what was real in her anger was how far away I was and how impossible it seemed to her that I couldn’t just come right over and take her away from all those people who—thankfully—wouldn’t let her drive home. I never forgot how useless it made me seem. What good was I in her life if I couldn’t be at her beck and call?
And then there was the swimsuit incident in Puerto Rico.
Smidge usually wore a one-piece to hide the scar on her chest from when they removed the tumor, but this time she’d just completed a six-week boot camp and wanted to show off her impressively toned body.
We were flat on our backs, poolside, when she pointed at a mole on her left flank.
“You see this?” she asked me.
I leaned in. “Yeah.” It was brown and shaped like a tulip, blurred edges
One time Smidge called in the middle of the night so hysterical I was immediately terrified someone had died.
It was two in the morning West Coast time—meaning four her time—and she was shouting into the phone, “I don’t know where I am! I’m lost and sad and I need you to come and get me!”
I was fifteen hundred miles away. Which 911 do you call for that? Mine? Hers? If hers, how exactly do you dial some other city’s 911? Only because of Smidge have I had to ponder such questions. When normal people have an emergency, their first response isn’t to call the one person who at that moment is at the absolute farthest point.
“Smidge!” I shouted back as I wandered through my dark bedroom. I made a vain attempt to find something to pullover myself, meaning some sleepy part of my brain knew there was a slim chance I might have to walk straight out of my apartment and drive to wherever she was. “Where are you?” I asked.
What Smidge lacked in tears she made up in volume. “I don’t knoooooooow !” she wailed. “Everybody’s mean here and they won’t let me driiiiiiive hooooooome !”
This is when I stopped looking for a pair of pants and started looking for a glass of wine.
“Who’s everybody?” I asked into the phone, my confusion making me sound like an old, lost lady. “Where are you? What is happening?” I tried to keep from sounding too judgmental as I asked, “Are you drunk?”
The missing answer in her answer told me all I needed to know. “This party is the worst!” she shouted. “Everybody here is an asshole and they’re all laughing at me right now.”
“Where is Henry?”
Then the skritch-shluck! of a phone sliding down someone’s shoulder filled my ear. Smidge returned even louder, sounding like a walkie-talkie wired straight to my brain. “Who cares?” she shouted. “I told him if he didn’t give me the keys, we were getting a divorce, and he didn’t give me the keys so I hate him and that’s it. The end.”
Most likely Henry was standing right there, listening to her diatribe, Smidge’s keys safely hidden in his left palm.
“Can you describe where you are right now?” I asked, like she was a little boy trapped in a cave or a well. Like I’m talking a trauma victim through a hypnotherapy session.
“Some guy’s house,” she said. “He can’t decorate for shit.He’s got stuffed monkeys on his shelves. What kind of psychopath decorates with baby toys?”
“Well, I guess I can see why you’re so upset.”
“ Thank you. Now come get me.”
“I can’t come get you, Smidge.”
She began her tearless wails again, her voice raising an octave as it warbled, “Then you aren’t a very good friend and I hate you.”
Hatechoo. That’s how she says it. Like a vicious sneeze.
She wouldn’t remember it in the morning, but I would never forget it. As drunk as she was, and as little as she meant she hated me, what was real in her anger was how far away I was and how impossible it seemed to her that I couldn’t just come right over and take her away from all those people who—thankfully—wouldn’t let her drive home. I never forgot how useless it made me seem. What good was I in her life if I couldn’t be at her beck and call?
And then there was the swimsuit incident in Puerto Rico.
Smidge usually wore a one-piece to hide the scar on her chest from when they removed the tumor, but this time she’d just completed a six-week boot camp and wanted to show off her impressively toned body.
We were flat on our backs, poolside, when she pointed at a mole on her left flank.
“You see this?” she asked me.
I leaned in. “Yeah.” It was brown and shaped like a tulip, blurred edges
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