Page 2 of The Wrong Track

“Smith,” I’d told her. “You can use Smith.” It made as much sense as anything else.

“So, how did it go?” Hazel prompted again. She had been pressuring me to make an appointment and she’d been right that I needed a check-up, but now I knew that everything was ok. As soon as she moved out of this condo, I wouldn’t have to see that doctor again. Her boyfriend had bought a house and she was going to live there full-time, not just most nights as they were doing now. It was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to monitor from her porch if I’d gone to doctor appointments, if I was buying groceries, if I was getting to work.

Right now, though, she was still waiting for me to answer her question. “It went ok,” I told her. I held Russell closer to my face and rested my cheek on his back and he didn’t object.

“Everything is normal?”

“Everything’s normal,” I agreed.

“You are really stingy with information,” she told me, but she smiled again. Hazel didn’t ever get that mad, I didn’t think, because she was just a good person all the way through. Which was what I reminded myself again as she started in with a lot more pointed questions about my appointment. She was a good person and she was trying to help. She had already helped me so much, by getting me a job, by loaning me one of her boyfriend’s cars, by being a friend. She claimed that she needed friends, too, but she already had that boyfriend, a mom, a best friend, and a dog, and all of them loved her. As far as I could tell, she really didn’t seem to need her helpless, solitary neighbor, Remy…Smith. That was sufficient.

I did answer enough of her questions to keep her satisfied, and enough so that she wouldn’t insist on coming to these appointments with me as she had threatened to do. She was worried that I wasn’t going to go to them myself, which, of course, I wouldn’t as soon as her eyes were off me. But it was also very generous of her to care, to offer up her time at all, because she was so busy with the boyfriend and best friend and mom and dog, plus going to school, plus working, plus playing the piano all the time because she loved music. Her life was very full.

And mine, I thought after we said goodbye and I went into my own townhouse, was very empty. Literally, the place was empty, because all the furniture that we had rented was gone. The store had repossessed it all very quickly when the payments hadn’t come in on time. Hazel, being Hazel, had also reacted quickly, stepping in to organize a used furniture drive among her family to fill up my house. But I’d told her no, I didn’t want that. It wasn’t like I could take any of it with me, and I was leaving here soon.

“But won’t you need things, Remy?” she’d asked. “A nice bed, a place to sit, a crib? I guess you can register for that. You know, when you register for your baby shower.” She had been very disappointed that I hadn’t wanted one of those, either.

I sat down in my living room in the chair she’d insisted that I take, a brown one that had been in someone else’s basement and was actually very comfortable. Carefully, tentatively, I put my hand over my stomach. They’d shown me pictures today so I could see what was growing in there.

“Looks great,” the doctor had assured me, just like the nurse had. “Everything is right on schedule for an April delivery.”

“Aries, the ram. A fire sign,” the nurse noted, and I’d rubbed my eyes. I didn’t like to hear about dates, but April was far away and January always seemed to stretch forever, didn’t it? January had thirty-one days, and so did March. I had plenty of time. I removed my hand from my stomach and held onto the arms of the brown chair.

The walls of these townhouses were so thin. I could hear when Hazel’s boyfriend arrived, could actually hear him walking up the path in front of these places before he even got to the porch. I heard him opening the front door, then the dog going crazy, Hazel saying hello so happily and running to meet him. He’d be hungry, because he always was, so he’d finish the lunch that she’d made that I hadn’t been able to do anything but nibble on.

“You need to eat,” Hazel had told me worriedly, but I’d answered that I was just tired and needed to nap instead. She was always happy that I was sleeping because she also didn’t think I did that enough. She’d been concerned about the dark circles under my eyes, about my constant yawning.

“Are you afraid to be at your house alone?” she’d asked me, her face very concerned. “You can stay with me. Or you can come to Hatch’s house, or my mom’s. We’d love to have you.”

“I’m not afraid.” No, I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. “No thanks.”

I listened now to the deep tones of her boyfriend speaking and the lighter sounds of her laughter as she answered him. They were happy together and he treated her very well. I’d watched to make sure, because it was easy to see how it could have gone bad for Hazel. For one thing, she was just so trusting. He could have fooled and tricked her six ways from Sunday and she would have smiled at him and gone along with it, but he didn’t. He smiled right back at her and told her the truth, as far as I could tell.

The bigger area of concern was that the guy was a literal giant, very big and very threatening. But he didn’t threaten her at all. He was careful with her all the time, careful with their little dog, gentle and protective. I looked at his big hands and knew what he could do with them, but Hazel never thought that way. She looked at him only with love. It was quiet in her house now and I imagined them kissing. They did that frequently, but since Hazel knew how porous the walls were in these units, she didn’t allow things to move beyond that.

After a while, they knocked on my door to check in, to say they were leaving and ask if I wanted to come. Did I want to hang out, to have dinner, to stay with them at the boyfriend’s house? The answer to all the questions was no. Thank you, but no.

“Are you sure you’re all right alone?” Hazel peered around the mostly empty room, her forehead furrowed up. “It’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

“I’m ok.”

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised. “I know my mom wants to talk to you, too.”

I also knew that. Her mom was a real estate agent and had been hard after me to discuss where I was going to live next. The lease was up shortly on this townhouse, and I certainly didn’t have the money to renew and keep living here even if I’d wanted to.

Which I didn’t. It was time to move on.

The question for me was where to go. Not back to where I’d come from, and I thought that maybe I’d head west. California was warm, wasn’t it? The southern part? I could even leave the country and go to Mexico if they’d have me.

I sat in the chair until it got even darker outside, but I wasn’t sure it had even been light for the whole day. I changed into warmer clothes, an extra sweatshirt, a hat, and another pair of socks, because the night was definitely colder. Cold and pitch black and long. I looked out the window, which was angled in a weird way so that it didn’t see into the houses on either side. That meant it basically pointed toward nothing, but it was too murky now to see anything, anyway. I covered myself up with blankets and stared out into that emptiness for a long time, thinking. I hoped that I would fall asleep, but I also hoped that I wouldn’t dream.

Then there was knocking. It stopped for a moment and someone said my name into the silence.

“Remy?”

I stretched, uncomfortable. It was light outside the window, so, morning again? The sun always rose with unfortunate regularity.

“Remy?” the voice called through my front door.

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