Broken Shopping Bag

Chapter 1 Josie’s life was like a present: it was wrapped up neatly, all the corners perfectly squared, with a bow and curly ribbons to complete everything. Mine was like the shopping bag you’ve been lugging around all day to tote your stuff, and now it’s crinkled and thin and barely unusable, generally with a big fat hole in the bottom where everything falls out. Especially, the eggs. Not the butter, or the lettuce, which don’t fit through the fist-sized hole, but the eggs do. And they, though they are supposed to be packed on top of the bag, your bag-stuffer at the grocery store was having an up-yours day and got a cynical kick by leaving your eggs at the bottom. Josie was my best friend from fourth grade to the summer before seventh, and then she decided to throw me out the window. Come to think of it, I guess I was those eggs in the bag. Murphy’s Law—“if anything can go wrong, it will”—I was the thing destined to fall out first. But there was no sardonic packer to blame. Only myself, and I guess what I wasn’t willing to compromise: myself. I’m pretty sure I was jealous of her every single day, up until the second-to-last day of school in tenth grade. Sticking with the metaphor, eggs will be eggs. When someone divorces you, and leaves you and your fellow eggs on the sidewalk, not checking to see if one is left unbroken—that’s leaving a lot to be wondered at. I still passed her in the hallways sometimes, but we had grown apart to the point we couldn’t toss each other a ‘hello’ or even a smile anymore. I had other friends and she hers. I really didn’t even care about her, just wished that my life was mirrored to hers. I wished that she was the one jealous; I wish there hadn’t been a hole. I wished until I had come to the point that she was having to wish, too. Then, the day before we graduated to sophomores, her parents and older sister, Jamie, died in a plane crash. It was all over school on the last day. I made my faces and said my lines (That’s such a pity; it’s too bad; I’m sorry). After I said my lines, I said my answers (We grew apart; she and I didn’t really get along; we didn’t really match anymore, you know?) to the usual comments about social history (Hey, didn’t you used to be best friends with her?; Do you still like her?; Do you miss the old Josie?). I was detached from the situation; Josie didn’t matter to me anymore. I was sad, not in particular or only Josie, but for the fact that her parents and Jamie had always been nice to me, and that Josie’s younger sister, Edie, outlived them, too. I was sad that things like that happen, to anyone, even if it did involve Josie. As predicted, Josie did not show her face on the last day of being a sophomore. Josie was out of my mind for the next week or so; I only heard snatches of her name in passing

conversations (Josie hasn’t been seen at any of the summer parties; she cancelled her own bash without telling anyone; I heard she got shipped off to the Bajas to live with her rich grandparents). They were typical Josie-related comments. Her parents and older sister had died and yet she was living with rich grandparents (who were obviously less strict) in the Bajas. However, as I found out my tenth day out of tenth grade, a Wednesday, Josie was most certainly not in the Bajas. No, she was on my front porch, suitcase in hand. Not to get ahead of myself or anything. *** Ten o’clock on Wednesday morning found me hammering on the door of the bathroom my ten-year-old brother Charlie and I shared (for the time being). “Charlie!” I yelled. “I really need to pee!” “Use another bathroom!” he yelled. “We’ve got two and half other ones!” There came the sound of muffled laughter, then, because certain ten-year-old boys think it’s funny that you can have half a bathroom. You know, one with just a toilet and sink, with no tub or shower. “The workers are in Mom and Dad’s bathroom and the half bath down the hall, and yours doesn’t have a toilet in it yet!” We were in the process of remodeling our house, much to the annoyance of me in the bathroom side of things. There were four people in our family, but it felt like a lot more when we had to share one on-the-smallish-side bathroom. Finally, finally, the door opened and out Charlie stepped. He gave me raised eyebrows. “I might not go in there if I was you,” he said. “It smells like pee and OJ.” At that moment, I didn’t care. I rushed in, shut the door, and peed. Then I sniffed. And I almost barfed. Charlie laughed on the other side of the door as he heard me wheezing and coughing and determined not to breathe. I was practically blue in the face before I stumbled out the door into the hallway where he was waiting. “You idiot,” I said, gasping for breath. “Why didn’t you turn on the fan?” He shrugged. “You wanted me to get out in a hurry.” I hate ten-year-old boys. I happen to not live with a ten-year-old girl, so I can’t testify, but I would bet that they’re pretty obnoxious, too. The reason that the bathroom smell like OJ anyways was because of my forgetful mother. Earlier this morning, around eight o’clock (my body clock still wasn’t used to not waking me up for school time, so I was up at seven every day) while I was having toast and boysenberry

jam (my favorite), she sat down at the table complaining about Charlie’s and my eating habits. She completely failed to recall that Charlie had recently morphed into Challenge Man. “I don’t understand,” she said, sounding all mother-y, “why you asked me to buy OJ if you weren’t going to drink it. It’s going to go bad before anybody drinks it all.” Charlie got the mad Challenge Man gleam in his eye. “Oh?” he said. “How much is left?” Mom, again failing to notice the symptoms, said, “About a third of a gallon.” I coughed loudly, once, and said, “Doctor Normal recommends silence.” Charliejumped up and brought the OJ and a clean glass over to the table. He poured himself a huge glass, downed it, then another. And another. And another. And another. Until all the OJ was gone. When it (and he) was finished, he slammed his glass on the table and smiled in a very triumphant way. “So,” he said mockingly, “nobody’s going to drink it, huh?” My mother raised her eyebrows. “You shouldn’t go out today,” she said pleasantly. “And why ever not?” said Charlie, a little annoyed that she hadn’t congratulated him on his superb OJ-chugging. Mom shrugged. “You’re going to need the toilet a lot.” Charlie turned pale and ran out of the room. Mom and I laughed, and I mournfully finished my piece of toast without any OJ to drink. I had just picked up a book and started to read when my mom told me she was going to yoga and would be back in two hours. “Be meditative,” I said. “Be productive,” she fired back. My mom was big on productivity. Yeah, sure, you could stay home all weekend as long as you cleaned your room, bathrooms, family room, kitchen, and finished your homework before four o’clock on Sunday. “Namaste,” I said, just to make her mad. I read for five minutes after she left, then realized I had to pee, and walked down the hall and confronted Charlieabout his smelly bathroom habits. After he had finished laughing at me and I had finished smacking him (lightly, and which he dodged), we drifted into the kitchen to see what wecould find. Charlie stuck his nose in the refrigerator. “No cookie dough,” he said sadly. “I could really go for some candy or something. Or a decent pear.” “I have a chocolate Hershey’s bar leftover from a summer party,” I offered, simply because I knew I would have to put up with his whining all morning if he didn’t get some sugar, and I hated when people talked to me while I was trying to read a book.

My nose in the book, I walked down the hallway towards my room (and the Hershey’s bar), and was just passing the front door when the doorbell rang. See, here’s the thing. After my sixteen(and a month) years of living with my mother, I knew not to open the door to anyone. Period. Even when she is home. And the rule doubly applies when she’s not home. Normally, it’s only solicitors or religious converters the UPS person, and nobody wants to be engaged in a conversation about how Mormonism is the best religion (I’m sorry if I offended you because you think it is). If it’s a neighbor, they’ll call ahead, or, when we don’t answer, they just leave the goodies on the front porch and we can pick it up later, after they’ve left. If it’s a family member at the front door who has forgotten their key, they’ll just ring the doorbell repetitively, and fast, until someone comes to let them in, since no solicitor is rude enough to do that. So, basically, I totally wasn’t planning on opening the front door. But I was right in front of the door when they rang the doorbell, and the thing about our front door is that the upper half is mostly windows. Which is nice, letting in the sunlight. Only everyone who comes to our front door can see straight into our house, and then into our dining room. Which creates a problem. Especially if you happen to be walking down the hall, innocently reading a book and not looking out the windows before you come in front of them and so whoever is standing there can see you. And so I had no choice but to answer it. It’s a pretty safe bet to say that I’ve never been more surprised to see Josie Williamsstanding there, with a woman in a smart navy suit right behind her. And, may I remind you, that I live with a ten-year-old boy. *** So I answered the door. Really, it wasn’t my fault at all. “Hi,” I said, opening the door, and mentally running a check over myself: navy shorts without any stains, an old and faded cantaloupe-colored T-shirt, hair back in a neat ponytail, teeth clean. Josie gave me a thin, not-showing-teeth smile. I would have expected better. I mean, she’s on myfront porch. The least she can do is look sincere. “Hello,” answered Ms. Suit in a light but still there Southern accent. “Are you Ms. Cadence Evans?” I nodded. “Well,” Ms. Suit continued, and held out her hand, which I shook, “I’m Ms. DeRives, the Williams’ family attorney.” “Nice to meet you,” I said courteously, which is more than I can say for how Josie was acting. “Is your mother home?” I paused, then shook my head. “Nope. She’s at yoga. She’ll be back in a about an hour and

half.” Ms. DeRives nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Evans.” I immediately decided I like this Ms. DeRives. I had always found the custom of calling a child by her first name once everyone had been introduced perplexing, because whenever I was introduced to anybody, it was always their title and then a last name. Were kids not equal to adults? I smiled. “Call me Cady.” Ms. DeRives smiled back, if but a little grimly. “Then call me Beth.” “Would you like to come inside?” I asked, but made sure to look just at Ms. DeRives, and not Josie. “Oh yes, that would be lovely. I really need to talk to your mother, but I can tell you and…” she paused to look at her sheet of paper, and I noticed that Josie did not supply the answer — “Charles.” “Okay,” I said, and stole a glance at Josie. She was looking at our hardwood floors. “He goes by Charlie, though. And, please, Beth? Don’t say anything that could be taken as a challenge. At all.” I led them to the kitchen table and asked if anybody wanted anything. Ms. DeRiveswanted a glass of orange juice. Josie did not ask for anything, but there was something in her face. And it was her parents and older sister. I grabbed Charlie from the back room, who was reluctant to be drawn away from the toilet, and sat him down. “So, Cady and Charlie,” said Ms. DeRives, and opened her briefcase. “This is about the Williams’ family will. I’m not going to beat around the bush, here, Cady, but the fact is that almost all of Josie and Edie’s relatives are deceased. You might be familiar with the fact that both their parents were the youngest siblings of small families—Mr. Williams had two older brothers, the younger of whom was eight years older. Mrs. Williams had one older brother, elder by ten years. The Williams themselves were around fifty-two or so, not young themselves. Mr. Williams’ brothers, John and Taylor, died in a car crash eleven years ago, and Mrs. Williams’ brother, Antoine, is currently on a six-month safari with his wife in Africa, with their children in college. All grandparents are deceased, and all first or second cousins or as far as we went are either elderly or in their twenties. The will dates from nearly four years ago, and as emergency contacts—the Evans are listed.” My breath caught in my throat, and I counted backwards in my head—four years, at the height of Josie’s and my friendship. “What I’m proposing,” said Ms. DeRives, “is that Josie and Edie stay here, with you, until we can trace back and reach Antoine Williams in Africa.” I stared. “Oh.” I said. “My god.”

Josie looked up at me, her eyes hard and piercing. If you dare, they were saying, say something. This topped our most awkward situation together, from seventh grade. In seventh grade I was still wishing that Josie would get dumped by her new friends and come crawling back to me, and I would shun her, then finally give in to her cries, and we would be/really close again. I wanted to impress her, to make her see what she’d lost. In February of that year, when I was just starting to be my own person, and not wish every time she passed me in the hall that she’d smile at me, our newspaper (newspaper started second semester, in January) teacher, Mrs. Beman, put us together for an article project. It was an in-class project, supposed to help us get to know our classmates. It wasn’t Mrs. Beman’s fault at all; she’d never seen us together, ever, in the hallways, how was she supposed to know that we did know each other, from way back when. We were handed worksheets to fill out. “Favorite food?”Josie said at last. Then, after a small smile, “no, wait. Potstickers, right?” I nodded. “And you—you like…” I pretended to not remember clearly, that I didn’t still have memorized stuff that she was “too cool” to remember. “raviolis.” Nod. She nodded. Another small smile. “Color. Raspberry red?” she asked. “Sea-foam green?” I nodded yes to her question, twirling my pen. “Pet. Dog. Taxi?” Nod. “Peanuthead and Almond?” Nod. “Remember that time I brought Peanuthead over and he went crazy over Taxi, sniffing her butt and everything?” I laughed and then we got quiet. We worked our way through the rest of the paper, then stared at each other as we realized we knew each other’s answer to every single question. For the next week or so, we worked on turning the answers into the paper. We talked and laughed and reminisced and caught up in class, thenshe would ignore me the minute the bell rang. I thought things would be better between us. It didn’t happen. Things that don’t happen affect us more as people than things that did. I moved on; I made way in my heart for many more people, even if it took a little longer than it took Josie. To be specific? Five months and three days. But this story isn’t to tell you how long it took, or even how it took place. This story is to tell about the time after my heart had sealed the hole. And about what happened after Josie Williams turned up on my front porch with a thin-lipped smile.

And, more importantly? What happened to me. Cady Elizabeth Evans.