“The kitchen’s this way,” Esther says mildly, as if she hadn’t just ushered Jesse into one of the most astonishing houses she’s ever seen in her life. “I thought we could get a snack and then go up to my room to work.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“We can go up the back stairs from the kitchen.” Esther leads Jesse along the narrow path that snakes through the overstuffed living room. “And don’t worry about my dad, he’s fine.”
Only then does Jesse notice that there’s a man on the couch, inches away from where she’s standing. He’s curled up on his side with his back facing the room, wedged into the crush of afghans, pillows, and magazines that cram the sofa: a sleeping giant in a nest of stuff. In a startled moment, Jesse takes in the curved, sharp knobs of his spine through his T-shirt, the droopy behind of his boxer shorts, the dirty soles of his long, white sweatsocks. He shifts a little as they pass and lets out a rumbling sleep-sigh. Jesse hurries after Esther, away from his too-live, shuddering body.
“He’s just napping,” Esther says, her voice light but a little strained.
“Oh yeah,” says Jesse. “Yeah.”
“I know it’s kind of a mess, sorry,” Esther continues. “I didn’t really get a chance to clean up before you came.”
“Kind of a mess?” Jesse thinks. It would take a week of solid work to clean this place up. But she says only, “No, it’s fine.”
They pass through a dining room as cavelike as the living room—it seems that there must be a table and chairs in there, but it’s hard for Jesse to tell because of the mixed-up mass of board games, bottles, books, and table lamps that’s piled on top of them—and into the kitchen, which is brighter, more open. The kitchen walls are yellow, the windows are dressed with little white café curtains, and although every surface is covered with crumbs and smears and sticky rings, and the sink is piled high with dirty dishes, at least there’s one little breakfast table that’s clear, not smothered in newspapers and junk. Jesse realizes that she’s been sort of holding her breath since the moment she walked into Esther’s house. She inhales now, and the faint perfume of sour milk fills her nose.
“Peanut butter and jelly okay?” Esther asks. Peanut butter and jelly—particularly peanut butter and jelly made by someone else in a strange, messy kitchen—is one of the grossest snacks Jesse can imagine. But she says vaguely, “Yeah, sure, great.”
Esther moves around the kitchen briskly, unself-consciously. She swipes up a filmy juice glass and a cereal bowl with a leftover pool of milk and floating Cheerios in it off the countertop and fits them in, Jenga-style, to the tower of dishes in the sink. Then she gets to work pulling plates, knives, and sandwich ingredients out of the cabinets and fridge.
“I’m glad you came over,” Esther mentions to the countertop, not looking at Jesse.
Jesse waits for Esther to explain why it’s helpful or practical or useful to have Jesse there. When she doesn’t add anything after a moment, Jesse answers, “Yeah, me too.”
In her pocket, Jesse feels her phone buzz. She checks it quickly: Wyatt. Not now, she thinks, and dismisses the call.
Unsure of what to do with herself, Jesse stands in front of the big mustard-yellow fridge and peruses its surface. The fridge door is a cheery collage of photos, receipts, menus from local restaurants, and happy magnets (an apple with a grinning, googly-eyed worm coming out of it, a blue plastic thermometer in the shape of the state of Michigan, a pig with a bandanna on its head and the words GO HOG WILD! painted on its pink side), but as she peers at it longer, Jesse gets the funny sense that this fridge is a kind of museum exhibit—no one has stuck anything new up here for a long, long time. One of the menus tacked under the map of Michigan is for Martinelli’s Pizza, which closed at least two years ago; Bedazzlers Nail Salon is there now, where Jesse’s mom gets her only-in-the-summertime pedicures. All of the photographs on the fridge are of Esther, but she’s no more than ten or eleven years old in any of them. There’s five-year-old Esther in a little green two-piece bathing suit at the beach, squinting seriously and holding up a pink plastic shovel. There’s eight-year-old Esther in a snowsuit and mittens, grinning and shaking the stick-hand of a tipsy-looking, half-melted snowman. There’s a school picture of Esther from maybe sixth grade, her braids in exactly the same disarray as they are now, her eyes wide—almost startled—above her broad, tiny-toothed smile.
“You’re so cute in these pictures,” Jesse offers, but Esther doesn’t respond. She’s working on the sandwiches with what Jesse now recognizes is her customary intensity, digging into the peanut butter jar as if she’s stabbing a wild animal, then spreading the peanut butter so fiercely that the bread tears a little under the attack of her knife. Her lips move as she reaches for the jelly, around silent words that Jesse can’t make out.