Page 11 of Cackle

“Night, Annie.”

“Good night, Sam.”

He hangs up before me. I hear it. That horrible disconnecting noise.

I roll over onto my stomach. It’s strange. Sam and I have been sleeping separately for months, and I’m still not used to it. I want to be, but I’m not. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to sleeping alone or if, from now on, I’ll go to bed huddled up to one side, waiting in vain for warmth beside me.

It’s so easy to adjust when you’re newly in love, when you’re all gooey, soft and malleable as an infant’s skull. You make so much space in your life and in your heart, and when the person you love leaves, you’re all stretched out. There’s so much room inside me that I don’t know what to do with, space I don’t know how to fill. I’ve been waiting for it to shrivel up, for me to take my former shape, to be how I was before I met him, but it’s not happening.

It’s been so long; I don’t even remember who I was before him.

—

On Main Street in Rowan, there’s a sign that reads Welcome to Rowan, America’s Best-Kept Secret.

I can’t even scoff, can’t even roll my eyes at the pure Velveeta cheesiness. All I can do is nod in agreement as I drive through town for the first time. It’s so quaint it makes my insides warm, and I can feel them churn with instant affection. That new-crush endorphin surge. I bet there are little hearts where my eyes used to be.

The short stretch of Main Street is lined with shops, each one more whimsical than the last. They’re all different colors: pale yellow, neon pink, deep teal, muted beige. They vary in style. Some have that classic general store vibe. Colonial boxes, windows with distinct muntin bars, front-sloped roofs and gabled dormers. A few of the shops look like they’ve been transported from a small village in Europe, like they’re made of gingerbread. Others are right out of a Norman Rockwell townscape. Perfect rectangles with vibrant red bricks and decorative cornice molding.

There are petite manicured trees interspersed with flowery bushes along the sidewalks. The lampposts are beautiful Victorian relics. Black cast iron. Flowerpots drape from their arms, all filled with yellow daisies.

I half expect a bunch of adorable children clad in matching outfits to pop out of the bushes and start harmonizing while performing a choreographed dance. Townsfolk in suspenders to emerge from the shops, burst out of the doors and windows to bid me bonjour.

I spot a few people out and about. There’s a woman in a linen dress and a wide-brimmed sun hat walking her dachshund. There’s a tall man in a polo shirt and cargo shorts carrying cups of labelless take-out coffee.

They both seem happy.

Past the rows of shops there are a few lonelier buildings set back from the road. An old geezer of a place with intimidating columns and a gilded eagle on top, probably a bank or municipal something or other. There’s a retro train car diner, the most delightful one I’ve ever seen. A bit farther down the road, there’s a small pond, and behind it, secluded in the trees, is a little stone church with an arched door and a steeple.

My phone yells at me to make a right at the stoplight. I do, and that’s it. That’s Rowan.

There’s another sign; this one reads Now Leaving Rowan. Keep Our Secret.

If the town weren’t so precious, the sign might be off-putting. But I don’t know. It works for me. I get it.

My cheeks ache, trying to resist my giddy smile.

I’m in on the secret!

I roll the windows down. The occasional breeze carries a faint cinnamony smell.

I think about what brought me here. Sam and me breaking up. Not being able to afford to stay in New York City without him. Getting sad and panicky. Crying. In the shower. On the subway. In Starbucks. I was crying into a venti caramel consolation latte when I ran into Matt, an old classmate of mine from NYU. I told him about the breakup, in perhaps more detail than necessary. I said I needed a change of scenery and, more important, a new job. He took pity on me. He knew someone who knew someone who knew about this opening.

I didn’t really have any other options. Or I was just too dejected and lazy to go looking for them.

When I did my initial Google search, I didn’t look for Rowan. I looked for Aster. Aster neighbors Rowan to the north. It’s significantly bigger and—I can see now—entirely less charming. There are strip malls, chain stores. An Applebee’s.

I stumbled across Rowan only by chance, on a random housing site during my desperate hunt for a cheap apartment. It’s a longer commute, a little over half an hour to Aster High, but I got over it pretty quickly once I put it into perspective. Thirtyish minutes alone in my car versus the horrific, often sticky variables of a subway ride. I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad, and I was right. It isn’t.

And I’m grateful now that I’m not in Aster. I’m grateful to be in Rowan, despite having to get up earlier and spend more money on gas. The town is so picturesque, so idyllic, it’s nudged me somewhere closer to the realm of hope for my future here. Somewhere almost adjacent to excitement.

—

Aster High School is a sweatbox. After a long orientation, an AP English teacher named Roberta escorts me to my classroom in the basement. It’s small and windowless and smells of mildew. But I wasn’t expecting Xanadu. I have a back closet for books and two big, slick new whiteboards. Exciting stuff.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Roberta says, already out the door. I hear her loafers squeak down the hall.

I spend the rest of the day cleaning, gradually getting dustier and dustier until I’m filthy and the classroom is . . . looking about the same. Nothing looks clean under fluorescent lights.