The Missing Half

by Ashley Flowers

I keep watching to see if she’s checking up on a kid in the throng of the arcade, but she just stares at the side of her drink, rubbing her thumb against the glass. Our dinner options are greasy pizza or rubbery burgers, the undersides of the tables are speckled with wads of gum, and the background noise is the shouting voices of children.

I changed into my uniform, which smelled like pizza grease, and chugged a glass of orange juice.

grab a bag of peanut M&M’s instead. Some woman named Ilana from AA recommended candy as a booze replacement, and even though I’m not trying to quit drinking altogether, I tried it once and then again, and realized somewhere along the way that I was hooked.

Mom stalked wordlessly into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of her favorite grieving drink, vodka Diet Coke.

I pop an M&M into my mouth. I want to track down Ilana from AA and tell her to go fuck herself. Candy will never replace a glass of wine.

After that, the man I call Sad Henry, a middle-aged man I’ve only ever seen in a suit and tie, does a reading about step eight while Candy Ilana streamlines Skittles beside him.

The argument turned into a shouting match, but just a few hours later, we were splitting a bag of Oreos and watching a movie on the couch, everything forgiven.

“Nic?” Jenna says and I jump a little. “Hey, are you hungry? I could make us sandwiches.”

For months now, all I’ve been able to afford in the way of food is Cup Noodles and leftover pizza from work.

We head into the kitchen and I sit at a little round table while she moves around, pulling out sliced meats and cheeses, whole grain bread. She piles salt-and-vinegar chips onto plates, slices a fat tomato, washes crisp lettuce. With my first bite, I realize how long it’s been since I’ve had a fresh vegetable. I can almost feel an influx of my vitamins and minerals. We eat in silence for a while. Then, as we’re picking at the last few chips on our plates, Jenna looks up at me.

I don’t have anything else to ask for, but I still feel like I have the upper hand, and I want her to pay. Not suffer, not sacrifice, just pay. I glance around the kitchen. “I want that tomato.” Jenna follows my gaze. “You want that tomato?” “I haven’t been eating enough vegetables, and I don’t have time to go to the store.” “Right.” The corner of her mouth twitches. “It’s yours.”

Oh, and there was this cute boy who worked at the yogurt shop across the street. We’d take turns going over there and seeing what free stuff we could get from him. Usually, he’d just give us tastes of the different flavors, but sometimes he’d pour sprinkles into a little cup. We’d take it back to the shop and eat them as we talked.”

I look over to see her holding an unopened bag of peanut M&M’s. “Did you…get these for me?”

“Right,” I say, opening the door and hopping out. “I forgot. Guilt candy.” “Hey, it’s better than a guilt tomato.” I pop one into my mouth. “Mm. The taste of regret. My favorite.”

In her hands is a Tupperware filled with what looks like brownies.

wanted to get rid of these anyway.” She lifts the Tupperware in her hands. “Thought I’d leave them here for the staff. I don’t know why I still make brownies when there’s just the two of us to eat them…What are you guys chatting about that has you both here late?”

“Well, I’m glad I’m seeing you, Nic. I’ve been meaning to have you over for dinner. It’s been too long.” “That sounds great.” Sandy’s meals are the only home-cooked ones I get. “Good. We’ll get something on the calendar, then. In the meantime, take these.” She hands me the Tupperware. “The staff won’t know what they’re missing.” “For real?” There have to be a dozen brownies inside, but I’m not about to refuse. She smiles. “They’re rocky road.” Her rocky road brownies have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, and because neither she nor Brad likes marshmallows, I understand that she made them with me in mind.

I’d been telling him how Kasey always took care of me when we were kids, making me breakfast on the weekends when our mom was asleep, too hungover to remember to feed us, and suddenly my stomach lurched. When I came back, there was a soda and vending machine chips on the little table, which he slid over to me.

My gaze flicks to a glass bowl on his desk. It’s filled with those hard candies wrapped to look like strawberries. I grab one, unwrap it, and pop it into my mouth.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a strawberry hard candy. Just before we left Wyler’s office, I grabbed a handful. The pettiest revenge.

I smell like wet dog and pizza grease and now, on top of it all, meat.

“If there are any specials,” Jenna finishes. “Uh, no, sorry. But the steak is good tonight.” “Great. I’ll take that. With a salad and baked potato on the side.” I hesitate, looking over the menu, wondering if I should get the cheapest thing I can find or just nothing at all. Before I can decide, Jenna says, “She’ll have the same.” I open my mouth to protest, but she waves it off and Matty turns to leave. “It’s on me.”

“What?” Jenna turns, looking into the dining room, a sea of red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and fatty meat glistening on plates.

She reaches across me into the glove compartment and grabs a bag of peanut M&M’s. This time she pours some into her own palm before handing it over to me.

I order a club soda with lime and Jenna orders a glass of white wine. I know she’s doing it for the pretense. One sober woman is a coincidence, two looks fishy. McLean orders another beer.

Kids laugh and shout in the distance, the sprinklers in a nearby yard make a rhythmic beat, and somewhere a few blocks away, I can hear the tinkling song of an ice cream truck. Despite all this, I feel a chill of fear.

If you don’t wanna watch your movie, why don’t I get you a cookie and you can color in the kitchen while Mama talks for a minute, okay?”

Sandy organized a meal train and was constantly rearranging dishes in the fridge or packing homemade sandwiches into little plastic bags for people to eat on the go.

One evening that September, after I got home from the day’s search party, I walked straight through the dining room, where my parents were talking with Brad and Sandy, and into the kitchen to make myself a vodka Sprite. By then, I’d started drinking more brazenly and more often.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but he just nods toward the food prep station where José, one of our cooks, is slicing a pizza on a round silver tray.

I’m home from work and finishing one of Sandy’s brownies when there’s a knock on my front door. It makes me jump even though I know it’s Jenna.

He appears in the doorway that leads to the kitchen. “Nic,” he says with a genuine smile that cracks me open a little. “Come on in. You hungry? I just got out stuff to make sandwiches.”

“Ham and cheese okay with you?” my dad says. “Sure.” I sit at the little kitchen table while he piles slices of ham and provolone onto two pieces of white bread. Once the sandwiches are plated, he spoons some store-bought potato salad next to each.

Sun glinting silver on the water. A deck of playing cards on a soda-sticky table. Fresh fish dinners.

Adults stand in clusters, red Solo cups and cans of beer in their hands. Two picnic tables form a cornucopia of food: open bags of chips, jars of pickles and condiments, Tupperware bowls full of macaroni and cheese and fruit salad. The hinges of a cooler squeak loudly as a woman opens it to dig around inside.

“This is just a misunderstanding. We’re taking care of it inside. You good to take over the burgers, Larry?” He glances at the man he was talking to earlier, who nods and reaches out to take the spatula from Brad’s outstretched hand. “Now, please, get drunk and try to forget any of this happened!”

“It was the middle of summer,” Sandy says, “that year, 2012. I was running some errands on Grape Road. I’d gotten an iced coffee and the caffeine was going to my head, but I couldn’t get myself to stop drinking it with it just sitting there in the cupholder beside me, so I decided to throw it out.

The end of dinners at their place, the end of Sandy’s long hugs and homemade brownies.

“I brought you coffee,” Jenna says, nodding toward two to-go cups nestled in the holders between our knees. “And a breakfast sandwich. I was just gonna go with a bag of candy, but I thought you could use a real meal for once.”

I flush the toilet, then slowly, shakily get to my feet and pad into the kitchen, where I’m met by the scene of my self-destruction—the sink stained red, littered with pieces of the broken mug. Next to it are an oily baking sheet I used to make a frozen pizza for dinner and a plate of half-eaten crusts.

The art teacher would prop our paintings on easels, put out a grocery-store cheese platter, and pretend her nine- and ten-year-old students were artists in a gallery.

“Jules was the one you should’ve been friends with,” Mrs. Connor says. “Sweet as lemon meringue, my Julie.

You know you can’t drink when you’re on medication.’ If it were up to her, I’d sit here all day doing nothing but drink celery juice.”