The Cranberry Hush: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

roomed together, at once so familiar and so different. I’d
turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see me—I probably thought about ducking
behind something. It wasn’t easy but somehow I made myself walk over to him. He
had on red Converse All-Stars with his navy blue pin-stripe suit. His
graduation gown was tossed over his shoulder like a locker room towel.
    “Look at you all dressed up,” I said as I approached, doing
my very best to sound like I’d seen him the day before and every other day
before that, too. But of course the act was useless.
    “Hey,” he said softly and almost with suspicion, as though
he wasn’t sure I was really there. His dark eyebrows furrowed but he stepped
forward to hug me. It was a quick clap-on-the-back hug, though, a hug of
strangers. “Hey Vince. How you been?”
    “Good. You know. Keeping busy. Looking for a job and stuff.
Big day, huh?” I pulled my hands up into the wide sleeves of my gown.
    “I could take it or leave it,” he said. “I feel like I owe
it to my mom to walk across the stage.” His mouth opened to say something more,
but then he rubbed his nose and looked away.
    “Hard to believe we’re this old, huh?” I said, looking not
at him but following his gaze to the crowd of our fellow students.
    “Hard to believe. Yeah.”
    We made small-talk about our job searches, about finally
being adults, stuff like that, but there was no mention of the past. An
onlooker probably would’ve guessed we were just two random students who’d had a
class or two together.
    When the doors of a large ballroom opened and an
announcement was made for us to line up outside, we walked quickly to the
entrance, thankful for motion. I expected, because of the spelling of our last
names, to be lined up close together. But when the woman at the door asked not
for our names but for our majors, it felt like an escape.
    “Industrial design,” Griff told her, and the woman’s chubby
finger directed him to the left and down the hall.
    “Business,” I said, and I was pointed straight ahead. I turned
to Griff. “Well I guess—”
    “Remember to smile—”
    And we were split up there, in the entry to that ballroom, robed
graduates swarming around us like a school of jellyfish. Cut-off meaningless
sentences were our goodbyes. Before today, the last time I saw Griff was from
my seat in the audience as he walked across the stage to get his diploma. I’d
cheered for him then.
    Now, two years later, I closed the fucking yearbook and looked
at the picture window, past the pictures of Griff, out at the snow.

 
    There was a thump at the front door. When I opened
it I found a newspaper on the stoop. A car threw one at the old lady’s house
too and continued down the street. Her door opened and she plucked the paper
off of her freshly-shoveled steps, waved at me.
    The snow on the ground was nighttime blue now. I could see
in the car’s headlights and in the glow of the old lady’s driveway floodlight
that the snow was still coming down, but in fine flakes almost like mist. I
picked up the paper, slid it out of the translucent bag. The headline
proclaimed Blizzard! in giant text.
    “What time is it?” Griff said behind me, startling me. I
shut the door. His t-shirt was wrinkled and one of his pant-legs was rolled up.
    I looked into the kitchen at the microwave. “Well the paper
just arrived and you’re just getting out of bed, so it would appear to be 8:30 a.m.
But in this upside-down world it’s actually 8:30 p.m .”
    “Strange times,” he said, wiping his eyes. He still looked
tired.
    I tossed the newspaper onto the ottoman. “Paper claims it
snowed.”
    “Can’t believe anything you read nowadays.” He grinned,
hopping on one foot to fix his sock.
    “There’s pizza on the stove,” I said.
    “Cool, thank you.” He went into the kitchen, sliding his
socks on the linoleum. “Oh, homemade, nice!” He took a bite, testing,
approving. “Have any milk?”
    “No. There’s juice.