“Those mom jeans do nothing for you,” says my sister, fishing a foam roller out of a box.
“Seriously? A New Yorker tote bag? No one believes you read that shit.” A single bottle of supplements is set on the coffee table.
“Why bother going to design school and not taking design?” she asks, peering over the top of a cookbook entirely dedicated to meals for one.
“You look like an idiot spoon-faced Steve Madden ad. Eat some carbs—what’s wrong with you?” She prods me with a second, demonstrably longer, foam-roller purchase.
“Why do you worship white-people things?” That one was close. I’d almost made it out the door.
“Who even asks someone that?”
“You’re not someone,” she says, twirling a pen over a brand-new, thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of a chessboard. “You’re my sister.”
Meanwhile: Hey, June. Did you get the results of the MRI?
Nothing.
One night, I get home from work at a quarter to nine. Lately, June’s taken to hate-watching Seinfeld and heckling. “How is it funny that Jerry gets a South Asian immigrant deported after he ruins his restaurant?” I have a distinct suspicion she’s been muttering into an empty living room all day. I wash the subway grime off my hands.
I don’t know how cancer people are supposed to act, but you only ever hear about them running remission 10Ks or traveling the world searching for answers. It’s not as if I’m waiting for June to become inspirational, but so far she’s acting like a forty-year-old dude going through a breakup who’s moved back in with his mom.
“Is your office cool with you taking all this time off?” I ask gently. She needs to go the fuck back to work. She might be sick, but she’s pelting me with eighty-hour work weeks’ worth of determination and problem-solving. Well, me and sitcom legend Jerry Seinfeld.
“Fuck work,” she snaps. My spine stiffens. Okay, this is bad. This is depression or some other kind of mental health issue, because June does not refer to work in this way.
“Did you tell them what’s going on?” I take a seat on the couch, careful to keep the concern off my face.
“I haven’t told them,” she says. “I’m taking vacation days and you’d think I took a shit on the conference table.”
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. She raises her thumb to her mouth and chews on the nail. In my peripheral vision, she’s tilting her whole head slowly as she makes her way across like she always does instead of rotating the finger which is so much easier.
“Did you eat anything today?”
“Whatever,” she says, still gnawing on her thumb. Eyes affixed to the screen. “You know, it’s not just that the show’s racist. It’s this institutional expectation that everyone will understand Seinfeld jokes that’s racist.”
I get up and open the pantry. “Do you want ramen?” I hold out the block of Shin Ramyun Black.
“Sure,” she says, and then, “The fuck is Shin Ramyun Black?”
“It’s like regular Shin Ramyun, but it’s way better.” I fill the pot and set it on the stove to boil. I’m starving.
“But we don’t have kimchi,” she calls out.
I check the fridge, knowing full well that we ate the last of it yesterday.
“Ramyun’s garbage without the fixins,” says June. “Kimchi, egg, and scallions. That’s how Mom would make it.”
With my back to her, I close my eyes. I can’t believe she invoked Mom.
I throw my coat back on. “I’ll be back,” I tell her, letting the door slam behind me.
I love a new deli. A fresh location. I’ve been eyeing this one for a while. I grab kimchi first. A squat plastic square the size of a wallet that’s eight dollars. I get a grapefruit from a pile since June needs vitamins and then switch it for the tub of cut-up mango. I splurge since June gave me her card.
Next to the eggs is a selection of dubiously healthy snacks strung up on a vertical display. I finger the chocolate-covered dried banana chunks through the black foil packaging. There can’t be more than six or seven in there. I check the price tag. Five bucks. Criminal.
I pluck them from the hook, taking them for a walk. I pick up a can of seltzer. Two since it’s me and June. I wish I could get some Chex, but this isn’t the kind of deli that has regular cereal. I check out the buffet offerings on the long steam tray. There’s congealed chicken and broccoli behind the sneeze guard and fried noodles. A chicken drumstick’s been dropped in the vanilla pudding. It makes me sad for whoever thought to add a maraschino cherry and a dollop of whipped cream to the dessert. While peering at egg rolls, I slip the packet of chocolate banana into my pocket. They make a satisfying swish against my nylon coat. It lies beautifully flat against me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s futile to wish it was Patrick. It’s been a week since I ghosted him.
Can we have Chipotle instead? It’s June. Except that her name in my phone still says Juju. I scroll through our iMessage chain. It’s been forever since she texted me. She usually calls because she’s an emotional terrorist. Her last dispatch was from a year ago. It says call Mom.
I have the goofiest picture for her contact. It’s from tenth grade, when she was growing a perm out. I snapped it while she was sleeping, and her mouth is hanging open. I click on info to change her name, and that’s when I see it.
A little croak escapes my throat.
Of course. I smile up at the groceries around me.
I’m so stupid.
That’s how June knows where I am.
On her info page, I can see her big-mouth avatar, smack-dab on Twenty-Sixth and Sixth Avenue. We’ve had our locations shared for years. We started even before Mom left. I stopped checking because I got too jealous when she went to college. Watching her pie hole gallivanting around Manhattan while I was stuck in Texas without a driver’s license was too painful. I leave it on. I can’t believe she never just told me she was trailing me when I asked. That sneaky bitch.
I scroll through my contacts. I’ve got my location activated with so many people. Girls from high school I don’t even talk to. Jesus. What have I been doing for the last ten years?
I wonder if telling Patrick that I did the brand identity for Jeremy’s literary magazine would make me pathetic or pathetic and delusional. Mostly I want to ask him what kind of ramen he eats. Whether he thinks Seinfeld’s racist. If he remembers what an asshole June was. I love that he’s a year older than her.
My pocket crinkles as I reach for paper towels.
I can’t believe he has his master’s degree. I wonder if there’s any way we would have started dating in high school. I’d have been a freshman and he’d have been a senior and…
I slide my hand all the way into my pocket. I find myself pinching the packet, tearing it open between my thumb and two fingers, hand cramping with effort. They slide out into my pocket but when I pop one into my mouth, I’m thrilled that it’s somehow even better than expected.
There’s no way one packet is enough. And if they sell out, I won’t be able to stop thinking about them. I head back to the fruit. This time, as if checking the nutritional information on the Tate’s cookies, I smoothly grab another packet with my other hand and slip it into my other coat pocket.