Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist

Author:Kit Mayquist [Mayquist, Kit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

16

Returning home to Roslindale after that third party was harder than any time before. The mocking tone from my younger brother, Tony, as he watched me hang up the black dress from my suitcase made me debate putting drops into his cereal the next morning. Even worse was the look from my mother, as there was no doubt that after our previous conversation she suspected precisely the kinds of parties I now returned from. The ones the Gainsboroughs no longer attended and the ones that, as the weeks went on and I saw my father’s state, told me the pills he took were not for an injury that still lingered months after his mysterious fall but were an addiction that he now couldn’t seem to shake.

I knew she wanted to ask. I imagined the few mothering instincts that had been around for most of my childhood and recently lay dormant inside her begged to make sure I was okay. But she was never good at expressing herself, and so her lips remained sealed and it was never discussed. Same as with my high-school girlfriends, my college boyfriends. Same as everything else.

That Saturday as my shift ended, Prosenko informed me that Martin had another long business trip planned and would be leaving later that evening for New York, only this time with Jonathan and himself in tow. As a result he was giving me the week off. Initially the convenience was worrying, but when the local news reported a large tech summit, I realized it was the truth.

By Tuesday I’d been welcomed back into the fold of the Gereghty clan and their daily, lower-middle-class monotony. Forgotten were the buttery layers of Daniella’s croissants and the scent of fair-trade, single-origin coffee. Instead at home I was met with the stench of bacon grease and the odor of body spray emanating from the family bathroom upstairs, a scent from my childhood that I had willfully forgotten.

With Rumi and Anna still being distant and the knowledge that a text from me might not be the most welcome thing, it wasn’t long before I reached out to the only person left who had always been there to talk to. No matter how small the problem or how terrifying. If there was anyone in the world I could rely on for comfort, I knew it was my aunt, and so I pulled up her latest e-mail.

In our last exchange, she’d announced that a new company had been funding her latest schemes and that an exciting new contract was in the works. Something about a research grant by a place called Kinlex Labs. After that I began reading her articles again and quickly realized that so much had been published in my absence. Old colleagues whose dissertations I’d pored over and line-edited in exchange for a pint at the pub had gone on to graduate. There were articles attributed to Clare Ricchetti in languages I couldn’t begin to identify, and at this knowledge a source of pride swelled within me.

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