Two Hearts Alone

2. Zoe

2

Zoe

“Someone weird was just looking inside,” Brooklyn says. “They hurried off as soon as they saw me though.”

“A future satisfied customer, no doubt.” I have to keep my own spirits up as well as my daughter’s.

“There isn’t much else in this town, so sure, Mom.” At least Brooklyn’s trying today, as opposed to yesterday, when I could barely get her out of bed. The move from Queens to upstate New York is much harder on her, especially because it’s happening in the middle of the school year. Things have not gone down the way either of us had planned.

“It will take some time, sweetie,” I repeat. It seems to have become my mantra. Things will change for you as soon as you start school again, I add in my head. If I were to say it out loud, it wouldn’t go down well. The changing of schools is still a very sore subject—which I do understand.

Brooklyn looks around the store, which is a mess. We only removed the shutters last night. The first thing I did this morning was paint an obnoxiously big heart on the window. I refuse to let my lonely heart make me cynical—or I can at least pretend that it doesn’t.

“That you gave up your cushy sss job for this,” Brooklyn says on a sigh.

“Come here, mija.” I hold out my hand to her. She just stares at it. I bridge the distance between us and take her hand in mine. “I know this is hard. It’s the middle of winter, Mama just left, and we’re in this brand-new town where we don’t know anyone, but…” I pull her a little closer. “You have me. Your mom. And we’re going to make the best of it; that’s what we Perez women do. And you know what? In the end, it will be amazing.”

“If you say so.” She hugs me back a little, which is the most I can expect from my fifteen-year-old under the circumstances.

“Once the store is open, we’ll meet lots of people.” Which is why I want to get it ready for opening as quickly as possible. I had hoped to be able to open for business in a few days, but with how things are looking right now, it might actually take a couple of weeks.

“God knows what they’ll be like.” Brooklyn grumbles it more than she says it.

Her hand is still in mine as I lead her to the window. “Look at it,” I say. “Isn’t it picture-perfect?”

Brooklyn just shrugs. Maybe I did ask too much of her. Maybe I should have stuck it out in Queens, and everything it came to stand for, until she finished high school.

I look out the window, taking in Donovan Grove’s Main Street. There’s the diner across the street, where we will go for lunch later, after we’ve unpacked a few more boxes. There’s the hardware store and the mini-mart and the bakery, all filled with people we’ve yet to meet. A happy mother will always make for a happier child, I repeat in my head.

A man and a woman walk past the window and briefly stop. The woman gives a quick wave, then they’re back on their way through the snow that keeps on falling. Bernard, who owns the candy store next door, was quick to tell me that not clearing the sidewalk in front of your dwelling could result in grumbling neighbors, of which, I got the impression he surely would be one if I didn’t get my shovel out quickly. So I’ve tasked Brooklyn with keeping the sidewalk as clear as possible. If this snow keeps up, she’ll have to go out again soon.

“Do you want to call Marsha and Juan?” I ask, referring to our friends back in Queens, the ones that were hardest to leave behind.

Brooklyn’s body releases some tension. “That’s okay, Mom,” she says. “We have s**t to get done.” She wriggles her hand loose from my grasp and opens a box. She sighs the sort of sigh only a teenager can get away with. “Where do you want these?” She holds up a pack of bright-red Valentine’s Day cards.

“We need to put the rack together first. I’m not sure it’s a job for two women on their own.” I hold my smile.

“Oh yes, it is. There’s not a job in this place the two of us can’t get done.” The sullenness in her voice has been replaced by feistiness. “Where is it?”

I point at a box close to the door. As my gaze sweeps around the store, I am briefly reminded of what Brooklyn called ‘my cushy sss job’. It might have paid well, but it was far from cushy or comfortable. This store might be a mess, but as Brooklyn just said, it’s nothing we can’t handle. It will take some elbow grease and a lot of energy, but this is the beginning of our new life together, in a brand-new town—Donovan Grove, where there happened to be a bookstore for sale just as I started looking for one. Just as I started to gently contemplate a different life for us. So here we are.

Brooklyn’s tearing open the box. “Just because I’m putting together this rack,” she says, “doesn’t mean I approve of you selling this sappy, capitalist crap.”

“We give people what they want,” I counter. “So we can make a living.”

“This is not what people want, Mom. Maybe when you were young they did, but Valentine’s Day is simply not woke.”

“Ouch, girl.”

“I bet you that no one of my age will buy one of those cards.”

“Oh really?”

“Just retired people. And men who have something to make up for with their wives,” she says.

“So young, yet so cynical.” I flatten the cardboard box she just tore open.

“I guess that’s what happens when your other mother decides to no longer give a f—” She stops herself before I can chastise her for swearing. “To not care about you any longer.”

“Eve does care, baby. She loves you.” I have to say these things, even though I could have strangled Eve when she told us that she was moving abroad months earlier than planned. The moving abroad alone was enough of a punch in the gut for Brooklyn, but making her change her plans—making her move out here with me much earlier than anticipated—was like pulling the rug from underneath her feet entirely.

Brooklyn rolls her eyes. “Let’s not do this again. If she really cared, she wouldn’t be where she is right now.”

“I know, baby. I know.” I look at the rack we’re trying to assemble, hoping to distract her.

“It’s just for a year,” Eve said, when she first told us she was moving to Shanghai.

“A year is still twelve months of your daughter’s life that you’ll miss,” I said.

Because Eve was going to be away for a year, we agreed that Brooklyn would stay with her in the city, while I got settled in Donovan Grove. That way, Brooklyn could make the move in the summer and she’d get to spend some extra quality time with her other parent. Now, she’s had to move out here with hardly any notice, while her other mother lives the high life in Asia. It’s hardly fair on Brooklyn, but it’s how it is.

“I can do this on my own.” Brooklyn squats down.

“But you don’t have to.” I crouch down next to her and give her a hand.