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“Shit, shit, shit!”
Of course, on today of all days, when I had already woken up late from my afternoon nap, did my car battery have to give out. It’s the second time this month that I’ve needed to jump my car, but the $150 price tag made it a choice between groceries and a new battery, so that purchase will have to wait.
Usually I’ll ask my neighbor to help me out here. Mr. Davids is a Navy vet with an iron scowl and a heart of gold, and he’s always willing to lend his car for some juice or the occasional ride. He says I remind him of his son but, seeing as his son doesn’t come around much, I can’t tell if it’s a compliment.
Today Mr. Davids is at the senior hall for bingo night. He says it’s gonna be a hell of a tournament, and that there’s even an Applebee’s gift card on the line.
Besides him, I don’t know who to call. Most of my friends are away at colleges along the coast, the big artsy kinds of schools I could never afford, and the ones that are local have already left for their night jobs so they too could make ends meet. And my other neighbors are much less kind than Mr. Davids. Shit.
I unlock my phone and scroll through my contacts list. It’s mostly people I went to high school with, some old coworkers, a few college lab partners from projects I don’t remember doing, and - oh; There’s Craig.
Craig’s father, an angry businessman with a combover and a slew of ill-fitting suits, owns Flights, but he only ever handles the back end side of things. It’s Craig who really manages the bar, drafting up our weekly schedules and navigating customer complaints. He’s a nice enough guy, albeit a little awkward, and I know for a fact he drives through my neighborhood on his way to work each evening. Besides, the worst thing he can do is say “No”, right?
I select the contact and hit dial. He picks up after two rings.
“Hey, Jesse. Everything alright?” His voice is muffled and I can hear the faint whooshing of the wind against his car.
“Actually, no, it isn’t.” I take a deep breath, feeling my lungs struggle to inflate against the steady pushing of the binder on my chest. I can hear Craig lower the radio’s volume through the receiver. “Listen, I’m really sorry to ask and I know I’ve had a habit of coming in late these last few weeks but my car isn’t starting and I need a ride to work.”
A few moments pass where I’m alone with the muffled sound of the wind. There’s a chance he already drove past my street and was debating the pros and cons of turning around, or, worst case scenario, he was weighing the ethics of firing me over the phone.
I make my way over to the front of the building as I wait, seeking shelter from the falling rain beneath the porch awning. With my back against the building, I can feel the faintest bit of heat seeping through the exterior walls.
“Oh, that’s it?” Craig says, “Sure, I’ll be right there. You still live by the police station?”
Phew. “I do. Thank you so much Craig. I really owe you.”
He says a quick “of course” before hanging up the phone. And, true to his word, he comes rounding the corner roughly five minutes later.
His car slows to a stop in front of my apartment building, hazards already on as his tires skim the curb. He rolls down the passenger window, his eyes narrowed into thin slits as he peers between the raindrops, looking for me. I wave to him from where I’d been sitting on the porch, my knees curled underneath the fraying end of my puffer jacket, and I keep my face tucked beneath one arm as I approach his beat-up Prius.
“Thanks again, man.” I say as I slide into the seat. It’s a bit damp from the open window, but at least this car runs. “I promise this won’t happen again.”
Craig waves his hand in dismissal. “It’s no big deal. You’re practically my neighbor.”
He switches off his hazards and pulls back into the road. The radio is still playing softly, a jazz song I only recognize from his quiet humming as he helps bus tables. His fingers are tapping along the edge of the steering wheel in a pattern of pointer, middle, ring, pointer, middle, ring to match the beat.
I can't tell if the air feels thick from the humidity or the silence between us, either way it forms a hot blanket around my shoulders, pressing in on my throat and weighing down the rest of my body.
“You think it’ll be a busy shift tonight?” Craig asks.
“Maybe,” It's a Tuesday. Of course not. “We had a busy weekend.”
Craig nods. “I hope so. Helps the shift go by faster.” He taps his fingers a bit faster now, breaking the rhythm of the music. I can see his brows furrow out of the corner of my eye, lips pursed together tightly.
Craig’s father stopped by the bar a few nights ago wearing a deeper frown than usual. He’d pulled Craig into the backroom without sparing a single “hello” for any of the other employees, his knuckles streaked white around Craig’s wrist. I could only make out bits and pieces of their conversation through the heavy office door, muffled mentions of declining profits and real estate agents. Flights hasn't been doing well for a while now, and Craig’s phone calls with his dad have only gotten longer and longer with each passing week. It was only a matter of time before the property got sold to make way for something more profitable anyway, even if Craig liked to pretend that wasn't the case.
I can appreciate his commitment to the delusion, at least.
“Jesse,” Craig starts. The tail of his voice is lilted, as if my name were a question. “You know how Tina and I have that baby coming?”
“I do.” She's either six or eight months along; I can't remember which.
“Well, we've been picking out names and I wanted your opinion on one of them.”
It isn't the first time Craig’s run names by me. Sometimes, during our slowest nights when the bartenders have all pulled out their phones prematurely, he’ll ask a group of us to pick between some. James, Jack, Henry, Brian if it's a boy. Claire, Penelope, Gracie, or Jane if it's a girl. Usually he’ll jot down our responses, a collection of quick tally marks in the corner of his notepad. He never seems all that convinced, though.
“So,” he continues, “we’re going to be having a little girl.” I overheard him mentioning this to our senior server earlier in the week, but I congratulate him as if it’s my first time.
His fingers lose the rhythm of the music, instead tapping along to their own nervous pattern. If he weren't driving, Craig would be picking at the skin around his nails, a habit he's formed whenever gearing up for a conversation he’d been avoiding.
“We were thinking Juliet, but I don't know,” he says.
“Juliet?” The last time I heard that name it was being spit at me from across my family dinner table, the word cutting between my tearful attempts at explanation, my choked out promises that my mother hasn't lost her daughter. She was cycling through half-true memories of Barbie dream houses and braided hair, a mantra of Juliet, Juliet, Juliet woven throughout them. She repeated the name like a plea, as if saying it enough times made it reality.
The way Craig says “Juliet” is much softer. The name sounds nothing like a threat on his tongue.
Craig frowns. “You don't like it, do you? It was my mom’s suggestion. She wanted to name me Juliet if I was born a girl.”
“No, no. It’s not that. I just, I knew a Juliet once.”
“Oh.” Craig's frantic tapping resumes.
The night before my sixteenth birthday I caught some kind of stomach bug that had me in a cycle of waking up at odd hours to dry heave over the toilet in hopes of eventually throwing up. After my third or fourth round of almost vomiting I found my mom sitting alone in the living room, the table side lamp lit up beside her, with a sudoku puzzle sprawled across her lap. Only two numbers were filled out, and she was fiddling with our small radio, searching for a decent station through the waves of static.
“Juliet,” She didn't look up from the radio as she spoke, and her voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it made me stop and listen regardless.
“Have I ever told you about your great-grandmother?” she asked, finally settling on 101.7, a local station that plays classical music anytime past 11pm.
She had, if only in passing. I knew that her name was Juliet. I knew that she collected and repaired broken clocks. I knew that she was the kind of woman who only ever said “I love you” to relatives on their deathbeds. Despite this, I shook my head “no” and watched as my mother pat the empty space on the couch beside her. I sat.
My mother pointed to the cuckoo clock across from us, which sat proudly atop our large box TV. The clock was stuck on 2:33am, and had been for as long as I could remember. My parents always shushed me whenever I asked why they hadn't taken it down.
“My grandma made that clock,” she said, “It was a baby shower gift.”
She placed the sudoku puzzle on the arm of the couch and turned to face me completely.
“It’s funny, actually, she never showed up to my baby shower. She gave it to my mom to give to me instead. She didn't even leave a card.” She dragged her finger through the air, tracing along the side of the clock from a distance. “She carved J. N. in the side of it somewhere. Your father thinks that’s where I got your name.”
My mother called me about a month ago, on the morning of my birthday. She brought up her grandma again, if only to tell me how much it’d kill her to see me throw away her name so easily. She wished me a happy birthday, asked how school was, and told me she missed me. I listened to the voicemail three times before deleting it.
“What was she like?”
I look up from where my gaze had settled on the dash in front of me, my eyes briefly meeting Craig’s as he juggles his focus between me and the road. “What?”
“What was she like? The Juliet you knew.” He pauses. “Was she a good person?”
My first instinct is to laugh. It’s stifled laughter, but laughter nonetheless, and the way Craig’s brow furrows at the sound makes me feel guilty.
“Sorry, sorry. I don't know why I did that.”
If you asked my mother whether or not Juliet was a good person, she’d wax poetic about the promising young woman I was before I decided to shave my head and skip class to smoke weed. Back when I would let her wrangle me into puffy church dresses and force smiles for family photos. She likes to pretend all those times I asked for Star Wars action figures and tried on my father’s ties didn't exist, as if I completely blindsided her by wearing a tux to my freshman homecoming dance.
But Craig wasn't asking her. He was asking me. And the Juliet I knew was the not same one my mother knew. My Juliet would draw all her holiday cards by hand, painstakingly picking colors to match the message inside. She would sock playground bullies in the jaw, and would keep trying to bake cookies even after burning her first few batches, and would apply to IVY League schools even if she didn't think she could get in them. The Juliet I knew watched with pride as I signed the name change paperwork at my local DMV.
“Yeah,” I say, “she was a good person.”
I can see Craig still fighting back his frown in my peripheral vision.
I continue, “I think Juliet is a beautiful name. And I think your daughter is gonna wear it well.”
Finally, his frown dissolves into relief.
“You really think so?”
“I do. And I'm not a very good liar, even if I didn't.”
Our laughter dies as Craig pulls into the lot, choosing a spot between a pickup truck and an island of brown grass and cigarette butts.
“Thank you, Jesse.” He claps me on the shoulder before either of us can leave the car. “You’re a good friend.”
“Don’t mention it. I owed you for the ride anyways.”
Craig pulls out his phone as he closes the door behind him, opening his list of baby names and drawing a red circle around “Juliet”.
Later that night, after counting the soggy wad of tips I’d stuffed into the pocket of my apron, I type my mother’s name into Facebook’s search bar. Sure enough, three accounts down, is her, her profile picture a grainy image of her and I posing in front of our lopsided Christmas tree about fifteen years ago. The picture is too small to tell here, but I’d walked past the larger, framed version enough times to know that I’m missing two teeth in it and that my mother is holding a broken ornament behind her back, slightly visible in the space between us.
I take a screenshot of the picture and block her account.