December 27th, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

Will You Catch Me If I Fall?

Ash walked down the sidewalk by her house, wearing a pair of baggy old sweats and a thrifted Depeche Mode t-shirt. This morning she wasn’t expecting much, but at this point it had become more of a habit – a meditative ritual that started her days off. She would get out of bed, check her phone notifications, go to the bathroom, make a coffee, then walk over to the mailboxes to see if she had gotten any word from the Alto Design School. 

Like every morning, she walked down to the end of the row of houses to a grid of steel mailboxes. She took a mental note that the Safeway bag that she had seen the past two visits was still there. She considered picking it up and finally throwing it out, but once again decided against it. She got out her keys, unlocked the mailbox, and checked to see if anything was there.

At this point, her routine changed.

The moment she had forgotten – the moment that she stopped preparing for, that she broke away in her memory – finally occurred. There, laying in the mailbox, was a single envelope from Alto. Her name was written as the recipient. 

She stood there, staring at the letter for a few moments, before she finally snapped out of it and began to walk home. The entire trip back she debated back and forth as to whether she even wanted to read what the letter said, but the second she opened the front door a sudden daze fell over her and she immediately tore open the envelope and looked over the contents inside. Her eyes gazed upon the words:

THE ALTO DESIGN SCHOOL

1 Richter Way

Providence, RI 02903

20 December 2016

Dear Ms. Ashlyn Monticello,

Thank you for your application to The Alto Design School’s Art and Media program. We are happy to say you have been accepted

She didn’t read anything after that. Instead she kept the letter in her hands and excitedly walked back and forth in the middle of the living room, until her father walked in.

“Dad!” Ash spoke as soon as she saw him, near shouting. “I got into Alto!”

Mr. Monticello was in the middle of yawning when her daughter came forth, and so his face morphed into an open-mouth state of surprise. “Oh, really? That’s wonderful, Ash! I’m so proud of you!”

Ash gave her father a hug, strong enough to near knock him off his groggy balance, but he reciprocated nonetheless. At this point, Ash’s mother came in to see what the commotion was all about.

“Mom, I got in!” Ash repeated for her.

The woman, still looking frazzled from just waking up moments before, held a small cup of water in her hand, motioning it around to swirl up the liquid within.

“That’s great, honey…” she said, though her tone was much more solemn. “Do they say… how much you’ll have to pay?”

The expression on both the father and daughter changed. Ash slowly took her hands off her father and took another look at the letter.

“Well… w-well, it’s twenty-four thousand in total, b-but they pay for thirteen thousand… and you know, you know I have that scholarship, I can use that there… that’s another 3 thousand paid… a-and I can do work study, and that’s 3 thousand also…”

“That’s still five thousand, Ash. We don’t have five thousand dollars. And that’s every semester too, not the whole time.”

A pit sunk inside Ash’s stomach. She looked down, not daring to look at her mother. Tears began to swell at the corners of her eyes.

“This is why I didn’t want you to get too excited, sweetie. It’s hard to pay for college now. But you have us, here. You can work and live and not have to worry about all that.”

“But… m-mom…” Ash stuttered, speaking through now rolling tears. “This is just… this is what I want to do. I want to go to college. I want to be an artist.”

“Artists don’t make money,” Her mother continued, walking towards her. “Art is a hobby, Ash, not a profession. Say you were to go to this place – where would you find a job? How would you pay off your college debt?”

“There’s… p-plenty of jobs… I can be a designer, or an illustrator…”

“But those people don’t get paid. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not trying to break your heart, honey. I just want to be protective of you.”

“You always say that.” Ash was raising her voice now, though she still didn’t look her mother in the eye. “You always say you’re trying to protect me. But why don’t you protect me in what I want to do with my life, huh? Can’t you help me think of something, something that will help me get to Alto? Something to help pay it off? Or are you just going to sit there and do nothing? Why aren’t you going to help me?”

If Ash’s mother intended on saying more, she never got the chance to – the girl quickly stormed out of the room. The father, sighing, looked at his wife with pitying eyes. The woman gave much of the same look back.

Ash locked herself in her room and tossed herself down on the bed. She gave a deep sigh, then turned over to her record player and hit play on whatever was in there already. It was a Pat Metheny record. She played it loud enough to drown out her own thoughts, and closed her eyes.

A few seconds later – or maybe minutes, she wasn’t quite sure – she felt her phone vibrate in her sweatpant pocket. She took it out and saw one new message from Rose Kawakami. 

| hey boo!!!! i wanted to let u know that we’re planning a “new years drop” at aaron’s 

| place. everybody’s invited, we got booz and all. lmk if ur interested!

 Ash took her time reading the message. She didn’t respond at first, but eventually she typed a reply.

| I can go.

She placed the phone beside her and looked up at her ceiling. The fan spun just slow enough for her to keep track of the planks. She picked the phone up once more and sent another message.

| I got into Alto today.

She put the phone down once more. A few seconds later there was another vibration. She picked up the phone again.

| OMG, IM SO PROUD OF U!!!!!!! we can use the new years party to double as ur 

| celebration, heehee =)

For some reason, Ash felt herself begin to cry again when she saw the message. She put the phone back down without writing a response, and buried herself in her pillow, the music still reverberating through the room.

…

The Kinsky Cafe was surprisingly empty, given that it was around noon. Maria and Sadja both sat at a booth near the entrance, waiting for the rest of their friends – Kat and Rose, particularly – to show up. Sadja had ordered an iced tea and the two took turns sharing it.

“You know, this place still sort of gives me PTSD from when I had the summer job,” Sadja commented. “Makes me wonder if I can handle a real career when I could barely take the stress of food service.”

Maria gave a short giggle. “We can start going somewhere else to hang out then, you know.”

Sadja shook her head. “Nah, it’s all good. Not like I had to deal with any creeps like Kat did at the movie theater. Just a few too many hectic lunch rushes.”

The two waited in silence for a few moments, watching the other cafe goers around them. The truth was, however, that something had been biting at Sadja for quite some time. It was something she wasn’t happy with, something she’d rather keep dormant, but something she thought a lot about nonetheless. And this was her perfect opportunity to bring it up.

“Maria…” Sadja suddenly spoke up, “…is it alright if I ask you a question?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

Sadja shifted her legs uncomfortably. “Well… I was wondering how you’ve been, is all.”

Maria turned to look back at the people dining in front of them. “It’s been hard. I won’t lie about that. But I’ve got a lot of support, from my family. And from you guys. And that’s helped a lot.”

“Did you… did you find out what you were trying to find?”

The question caught Maria off guard. She tried to think of the best way to respond. 

“Sort of. I guess. I was just trying to… understand if any of you might have known something. Something about what happened to her. Cole helped too, of course. I didn’t really learn too much, but in a way it was… cathartic.”

Maria was dancing around the issue, and she knew she was. But part of her still wanted to put it all away and move on with her life. Sadja looked down.

“Did you interview Cole?”

Maria looked at her, confused. Sadja looked up.

“Sorry, that was a dumb question. Of course you did. I was just wondering, since… I mean, you know how close Cole was to Anita. And… I just thought he might know better than anybody, if anything happened. But of course you interviewed him.”

Maria paused for a moment. She looked at Sadja, who now had her head held down. “I did interview him,” she half-lied. “He didn’t know any better than I did.”

A solemn expression fell across Sadja. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

The conversation ceased, but the idea seeded itself into Maria’s mind. Cole had told her about the hike, but only after some pressing. And even then, it was never a formal interview like the others. So, Maria began to frighteningly consider… What did that mean? What did she miss, by trusting Cole above all others?

…

It was later in the day now, nearing sunset. Cael walked into the living room to see his son doing something rare.

“You’re… reading?”

Isaac looked up from the book, and his face began to turn red. “I- I just- what, I’m not allowed to read?”

Cael shook his head. “No, I’m… surprised, is all. A pleasant surprise.”

The older man took a seat next to the teen, to see what he was reading. It was a crime novel the man recognized. The boy must have gotten it from the shelf by the TV.

“I was wondering,” Cael continued, “I’ve got that bottle of Schopenhauer I still need to crank out. You want to drink it with me?”

Isaac nodded, placing his bookmark in and setting the book down. “Sure thing. We drinking it here?”

“I was thinking we’d do it out in the yard, actually. If we go now we’ll be just in time to see sunset.”

The boy got up from his seat. “Sounds like a plan.”

The “yard” was more of a pet term than anything. The Broderick’s – more specifically, Cael Broderick – owned a large amount of acreage that sat just behind their house. Mr. Broderick intended to turn it into a farm or ranch of some sort eventually (two terms which he assumed meant the same thing), but had not yet gone around doing anything with. The two walked out towards a fence that marked the border of the land and stared out towards the green pastures. Cael poured them each a glass, and they stood together, leaning forward to take in the view.

“So, any special occasion for this?” Isaac asked.

Cael took a sip of the whiskey and looked up at the sky. “It’s almost 2017. That means we’ve made another year still alive on this heavenly earth.”

His son smiled. “I figured you were gonna say something like that.” The boy looked up to the sky, and saw the aural linings of bright burgundy and clementine which his father was looking at. “It is a beautiful sky, that’s for sure.”

There were a few moments of silence between them. Cael was the one who broke it.

“You ever thought about wearing glasses?”

Isaac turned towards him. “Are you trying to say something there?”

“No, no, of course not. I mean, you are wearing your contacts right now, right?”

Isaac nodded.

“Yeah, see? I’m just saying that… think you’d look good with glasses.”

“They aren’t very practical for football.”

“Well, of course on the field you’d still be wearing your contacts. But I mean around campus. I think the girls would like it.”

Isaac smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure you know a lot about what high school girls would like in a guy, huh?”

Mr. Broderick grinned, playfully kicking the boy from behind. The boy laughed.

“But really, how’s everything else going?” Cael continued.

Isaac took a moment to think of an answer. “I’m doing good, I guess. But sometimes I do still think about Kat. What I could’ve done differently.”

“Well, it’s like I said. A lot of fish in the sea. You learn from your mistakes, and you move on. You’ll get over it eventually.”

“Yeah, but… she was a good one. And I don’t know if I’m ever gonna find someone that good again.”

Cael’s demeanor changed. He looked more solemn, and looked back at his son with sympathy.

“I understand what you’re saying. I think about that a lot, with your mother.”

Isaac looked up at him, expecting him to continue the thread of conversation. Perhaps at first, Cael considered it – but the next words from his lips seemed relatively unrelated.

“I always wished you had a mother, or some other female guardian, when you grew up. Not that I don’t think you turned out well – I think you turned out just fine, for the most part. But there’s a reason a child is raised by both a man and a woman; you need both perspectives in order to grow right. Us men… we’re strong, but we’re brutes. We need women to keep us in check, to help us recognize that there’s a more emotional, more sensitive, more soft, and beautiful world out there.  Not to say all women are soft and sensitive… just that they know that world better than we do.”

There was a pause. Cael looked back down to the ground.

“Maybe Lyla would’ve been able to help you better with Kat. Or maybe not. But I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

Neither the man nor the boy said much after that. They both finished their drinks, spending the time in between looking up at the elegiac winter sky, and the great grass plains below it. 

…

When Maria arrived home that night, she still had that feeling nagging within her. She walked up the steps and opened the front door to see her mother sitting down in her armchair, watching a Mexican soap opera on the TV.

“Hola, mama,” Maria greeted her, slipping off her shoes by the door. Her mother greeted her in kind.

“How was your day, chica?” Mrs.Cortez asked.

“Oh, it was good. Had lunch with the girls and we spent the rest of the day just hanging out.” Maria spoke this in English as she struggled to take off her coat. 

“Good, good…” her mother replied, turning down the volume on the TV then switching back to Spanish. “You know, you can always bring your friends here. Now that I’ll be working less hours at the hospital I’ll be able to see them. I miss seeing all of their faces.”

Maria smiled. “Yeah, I’ll bring them over. Especially Cole. I feel bad because he comes over all the time, but you haven’t seen him since my birthday.”

The girl began to walk up the stairs, her mother not giving any particular response. But as she walked up the first few steps, Mrs. Cortez suddenly turned towards her.

“Oh no, I’ve seen Cole after that. I saw him in August.”

Maria stopped in place.

The teen slowly rotated her head to face her mother. She looked her dead in the eyes.

“That can’t be right. Cole didn’t come over in August.”

Mama Cortez shook her head. “No, he did. He came over to take care of Anita. Here, I’ll show you the text if you don’t believe me.”

Maria weightlessly drifted off the stairs and towards her mother, each step silent, each step slow. Her mother took out her old budget flip phone, and showed her the screen.

“See? This is from the last time he came.”

| Hey, Mama Cortez! Just wanted to say Anita’s asleep now. Headed back home. Have a 

| nice night!

The message was dated August 22nd. 

Maria stared at the phone’s screen. Eventually her mother snapped her out of it.

“Is something wrong, Maria?” she spoke in her rare English.

“No, it’s fine,” she responded, and in a jerk pushed the phone back to her mother “it’s… it’s all fine.”

“You sure, chica?”

Maria gave a harsh nod, then turned around and went all the way back up the stairs. 

By the time she made it to her room, she was hyperventilating and in exhaustion fell to the ground against her door, tears streaming out of her eyes, not those emotional ones but ones you get from a physical reaction, when they just start running but you don’t know why. Of course she knew why they were coming out, just as she knew why she was hyperventilating and why her whole body began to heat up, so much so that she felt constricted by her sweater and tore it off her body, throwing it to the floor. She waded towards her desk, taking out her phone and seeing the home screen that had always been there, an old picture of Anita she had taken only a year before. She went over to her text messages. She stopped at Cole’s name.