"Perhaps this is my fault. In a way. Love was my gift to Princess Diana. I grieve that it does her harm."
Wonder Woman, Issue 270
Hopper stands in the kitchenette, waiting for the water in the kettle on the stove to come to a boil. He takes a mug from the drying rack and tips out the remaining drops of water into the sink and wipes it dry with a paper towel. Then he tears open a sachet of instant cocoa with his teeth and tips the contents into the mug and prods at the muddy brown powder aimlessly with a teaspoon.
Eleven is sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him. He can feel her eyes, staring into the nape of his neck. Just like in the old days, back in the cabin, when she would be up early and sit waiting for him to warm those damned frozen waffles in the toaster. But she has been quiet as of late, Hopper thinks. Much quieter than usual. So quiet that he can't remember a single thing that she has said this morning other than hello. And even that, muttered under her breath, so softly that he could barely hear her above the sound of his own thoughts, as if to stay out of earshot of any eavesdroppers that might have been lurking around the corner.
She had never had much to say, he supposes. To him, at least. But she would at least have some remark about how cold it had been or how the buzzing of the fan in the bathroom had kept her up at night or how she had been roused from her sleep by the glare through the window next to the bed she shared with Max. Or some question about a new word that she had heard the previous day. She had always enjoyed the unfamiliar shapes that they would leave on her lips. Now it is as if something has taken them all away from her.
"You okay?" he says. He knows what the answer will be before he even asks the question and yet he is still compelled to ask by a feeling of needing to say something and an odd process of elimination that leaves him with nothing better.
"Yes," Eleven says flatly. Just as Hopper had expected.
Why even bother, Hopper thinks. If only Joyce were around. She would know what to say. But she is no doubt still just stirring, half-asleep in the glow of the early morning, too early for her. And so he has been left to fend for himself. To squeeze blood from a stone. Might as well ask Eleven to tell you the meaning of life, he thinks. Might as well.
"You sure?" he says.
"Yes. I am sure."
"Okay."
The water in the kettle begins to rumble and a cloud of steam billows from the spout. Hopper takes the kettle and gingerly pours the gurgling water into the mug, being careful not to splash himself as he stirs the powdered cocoa with a teaspoon using his spare hand. Max, he suddenly thinks. Where is she? There is nothing unusual in him making just one mug of cocoa. Max had never wanted any. But he had grown accustomed to asking, just in case. He has not had to ask.
"Hey, where's –" he says. Then he pauses. He cannot decide whether he should continue. He looks over at Eleven and sees that she has not heard him. Or at least, is pretending not to have heard him. You can bail out now, he thinks. Funny. Back when he had been making decisions about the fate of the world he had been able to do so without batting an eyelid. Now he can't even make up his mind as to whether to ask some dumb question about where her friend is. Maybe Joyce is right, he thinks. Maybe they are getting old.
"Where's Max?" he finally says.
"Outside," Eleven says. She does not look up at him. There is an insect crawling slowly across the kitchen table that has caught her attention. "I think," she says.
"Doing what?"
Eleven shrugs. Just shrugs, Hopper thinks. He takes the mug of cocoa and shuffles over to the table and sets it down with a clink. He uses the teaspoon to give the cocoa a final stir before he tosses it over his shoulder and hears it land in the sink behind him. Eleven tilts her head up and Hopper sees a small smile emerge on her face before she takes the mug with both hands and brings it to her lips and takes a tentative sip. Does she not know? Hopper thinks. Eleven's face offers him no answers. Since when does she not know?
"You two okay?" he says.
Eleven looks up at him and tilts her head and raises one of her eyebrows in a look of confusion. As if this is all just a typical morning. As if she and Max had not been joined at the hip ever since that evening she had appeared on the floor in Eleven's room like some drunken hallucination. She does not even bother to nod.
"You sure?"
"Yes," Eleven says. Hopper replays the answer in his head, trying to detect any hint of frustration or annoyance or anything else that might let him into the impenetrable cocoon of Eleven's mind. But the only thing she seems to mean is yes. She goes to take another sip of her cocoa but stops before the liquid meets her lips. "I think she just wanted some air," she says.
"Huh," Hopper says. You should talk to her, Joyce had said. But what do I say, he had said back. My pop never said much to me. Less you want me to teach her how to use a rifle. Like any of us need that. But she had said it didn't need to be serious. Just talk to her about, you know. Normal stuff. She had always made it sound so simple. Normal stuff. What does that even mean? He could march across the campground and rouse her from her sleep and get her to do the talking. But it had to be him, she had insisted. It had to come from her pop.
"How are you feeling about yesterday?" he says. His voice squeaks unexpectedly and he can only hope that Eleven does not pick up on his discomfort.
"About what?" Eleven says. She takes another sip from the mug. Then she sets it down on the table, gently, so that it barely makes a noise. Hopper knows that she heard him perfectly clearly. She is just buying time. She is thinking. There is a way that her face looks when she is.
"You know. Owens."
Eleven nods.
"Wasn't a yes or no question, kid."
"Oh," she says. But she doesn't seem surprised or flustered. Which is good, he supposes. Maybe her little pantomime had given her a chance to think it over. "Okay," she says. "It was okay."
Hopper pauses. Waiting in vain for something more. "Okay," he says, when it is clear that Eleven has said all that she has to say. All the same he feels a relief wash over him, like warm water after a day spent out in the cold. He had always suspected that bringing Eleven along had been a bad idea. Heck, it had been bad enough for him. Seeing the old guy again. Like a relic from a past he had been trying to put behind him. A tear in the fabric of the new reality he had been trying to cloak himself and Joyce and Jane and them all in. His relief is short-lived, though. He can see that Eleven is still turning over her thoughts in her head.
"He seemed –" Eleven begins to say.
"Old?"
Eleven laughs. Half-heartedly, Hopper thinks. "No," she says. Then she stops. "Lonely."
"Oh," Hopper says. It is true, he supposes. Hard for him not to be. What else are you meant to be but lonely after your wife leaves you and takes your kid with her. Understandably, though, he thinks. Guess it's hard to be married to someone who disappears for months on end and re-emerges ten pounds lighter with scars all across his forehead. You'd think he was in the mob or something. He is lucky that Joyce had been knee-deep in it all, just as he had been, he supposes. He thinks back on how Owens had looked at him when they had finally parted ways. If you're ever in town again, let me know, Owens had said. He had that old, mysterious twinkle in his eyes. It'd be great to see you. Perhaps he had really meant it after all. "I guess," Hopper says.
He looks over at Eleven. Her eyes are still aglow with the glimmer of unsaid thoughts. Talk to me, El, Hopper thinks. Come on. He is not sure if the words are just thoughts in his head or if he has actually said them. But Eleven is still shut off in the cloister of her mind. Hopper is almost relieved when he finally sees her begin to open her mouth again.
"Do you think –" she stammers. Then she stops again. Like an animal peeking out from its den before retreating quickly back to safety. Perhaps the words hadn't come out right. But in the moment Hopper feels as if he knows exactly what it is she had wanted to say.
"We don't all have to turn out like that," Hopper says. He shuffles over to the sink and takes the teaspoon and scrubs at it with a sponge. Then he rinses it under the tap before beginning the whole process over again.
"Like what?" Eleven says.
"You know. Like Owens."
"Oh."
"We've got each other, right?"
Hopper waits for Eleven to say yes back. Or to nod, or to do anything that might signal that she had heard what he had to say. But instead she only stares back at him. You should have more to say, he thinks. You should have something else to say. If only he could find the words, he would tell her that she means the world to him, that he has the energy to roll out of bed in the mornings and to shake off the demons that cling to him because he always looks forward to seeing that little smile that she gives him when he sets her cocoa down in front of him. But all he has is his natural defensiveness, nurtured by the world around him since he had been the age Eleven had been when she appeared in his life out of nowhere, that makes him clam up and stare dumbly at Eleven until finally she smiles back at him, her eyes gazing out at the window behind him.
"Yes," she says. "I mean, I hope so."
Winniemucca is a town the color of dust. It cakes the off-white stuccoed walls that sit baking in the sun and is carried in the wind and deposited in hair and in creases in clothing and in nostrils where it leaves a musty scent, sweet like the smell of decades-old potpourri. The air tastes of it, thick and mineral and astringent and when the wind gusts it shakes the dust from the leaves of the trees whose branches seem to sag under the weight of it and sends it showering down onto the sidewalk like fine rain.
Robin stands outside, hanging her laundry out to dry in the Nevada sun that even in fall seems to attack every patch of exposed skin on her body. She takes each piece of clothing out of the basket and wrings out the last few drops of water before tentatively draping it over the makeshift clothesline she has fashioned out of a spool of ribbon, pausing briefly to ensure that the added weight does not send the entire thing tumbling towards the dirt at her feet. Just as she is about to hang up her last shirt she feels something bony come to rest heavily on her shoulder.
"Boo," Vickie whispers in her ear.
"Ugh, Vick," Robin says. She almost drops the shirt and has to scramble awkwardly to collect it before it touches the ground. Once again she tries to muster up the best impression of a frown that she can manage. Once again she fails and giggles and is met by a peck on the cheek and the smell of Vickie's shampoo mingling with the ever-present dust like the scent of flowers growing in wet earth.
"What? Didn't want to see me?"
"Nope. Never do."
"Yeah, I can tell," Vickie says. She peeks forward, inspecting the checked shirt that hangs limply from Robin's arms. "Checked shirt? Geez, Robin, what are you, some kind of –"
"Vick," Robin says, this time with a sternness that is real but that surprises even her. She glances around and, seeing that everyone else seems to have already retreated inside, away from the reach of the mid-afternoon sunlight, finally untenses her shoulders and lets her head hang to one side so that it comes to a rest in Vickie's hair.
"Oh. Yeah, got it," Vickie says.
They remain in silence for a moment, listening to the sound of the trucks speeding down the freeway outside the campground and the rhythm of each other's breathing. The sun disappears behind a patch of cloud and Robin feels the welcome coolness as the sweat on her brow begins to evaporate in the breeze. After a few minutes have passed, she begins to sense a strain in her arms and she finally moves to hang the shirt up, seeing that the water dripping from it has formed a tiny puddle at her feet.
"This is what you're going to have to get used to, you know," Vickie says.
"I know, I know," Robin says. "You said."
"You doing the laundry and me sitting there annoying you."
"I'd like to think you'd do it some of the time," Robin says. She picks the empty laundry basket off the ground and brushes off the dirt from the bottom and thrusts it towards Vickie, expecting her to take it. Instead, she only stares wistfully off into the distance, pretending not to have seen or heard anything.
"Domestic bliss," Vickie sighs.
Robin rolls her eyes. "What happened to Steve?" she says. She nudges Vickie in the hip with the basket, softly at first and then harder, until Vickie has no choice but to acknowledge it and take it with both hands.
"Steve?"
"You're getting married, right?"
"Oh," Vickie laughs. "Yeah. I forgot about that."
Robin watches the memories of their conversation in the woods slowly trickle back into Vickie's head, her eyes seeming to brighten as they do.
"We weren't, uh. I don't know. Compatible."
"Funny about that."
They make their way back towards the trailer, where the sound of Steve's snoring emerges through the door like the rumbling of distant thunder. Robin trails behind Vickie, watching the green, spiral-shaped earrings that dangle from her earlobes sway to and fro with each step. She remembers them from somewhere, she thinks. But she cannot think of where. Her memories of how their relationship had begun now seem like an indecipherable collage of mismatched images. She pauses before the steps to the trailer and Vickie, hearing that the footsteps behind her have come to a halt, stops and looks back.
"We'll be lucky to get that much, you know," Robin says.
"Rob," Vickie says. She steps back towards where Robin has stopped and puts an arm around her waist, holding the basket against her hip with the other.
"I know, I know. California."
"Yeah. California."
"Every place has its Ted Wheeler, you know."
Neither of them say anything. They can only stand there, feeling the chill of the gusts of wind that blow unimpeded through the treeless campground and the weight of their own words hanging over them. It's always hard, Steve had said. Imagining that things could be different from where you'd spent your entire life. But there is death, even in paradise. She remembers her middle school art teacher uttering that phrase. She cannot for the life of her remember why. It is difficult to imagine a life outside Hawkins, she supposes. But surely California wouldn't be that different. It can't be. They still have RadioShack and the Gap and shopping malls and they still drive on the right and sing the national anthem.
"Yeah," Vickie eventually says. Under her breath, like a child uttering a secret. "And just in case, we brought our own."
Robin laughs. She swivels around so that she and Vickie are standing side by side and rests her head on her shoulder. "Yeah," she says. "Just in case."
From where they stand they can see Max sitting in the distance. She is alone, perched on a picnic table, hunched over her book. She is too far away from Robin to make out her facial features and in the glare of the sunlight she is only an outline of limbs and an orb of red hair. But still Robin can feel a tension emanating from her. She can tell from the way that her knees are tucked beneath her chin and the arch of her back that her face is contorted into a grimace.
"What's up with her?" Vickie says.
"I don't know," Robin says. "You don't think –"
"Oh, God no."
"Wait – what did you think I was going to say?"
Vickie looks up at Robin, her eyes full of surprise. "Oh," she says. "Oh, maybe that she had asked El whether she liked her back and El had said no or something. I mean, why else wouldn't they be hanging out together? I heard the boys talking about how she had told Lucas to leave her alone back when we were having lunch, even though they've made up –"
"I dunno."
"What?"
"I dunno if that's it."
"Oh. Well, what were you going to say?"
"Forget about it," Robin says. She lifts her head and shuffles towards the trailer. "Come on. There's still a bit of laundry left to do." She opens the door and waits for Vickie, who stares back at her in confusion and seems ready to press Robin to reveal what she had actually been thinking before she eventually acquiesces and follows her inside.
In the trailer there is the lingering smell of toast and coffee and dishwashing detergent, trapped inside by the windows that had remained shut since that morning to keep the dust out. As she goes to shut the door behind her Robin glances back out at Max. She is still there. She has not moved. In a way, she looks as if she might never move.
You'll find your knight in shining armor one day, sweetheart, her mother had said. The sound of her voice disappearing amongst the sound of toast springing up from the toaster and the gurgling of the coffee in the machine and the soft hum of the dishwasher in their old kitchen. Don't you worry. She cannot remember how her face had looked. She had had her head buried in one of her schoolbooks. She cannot remember which one. The words had melded together into a great lump, like soft metal after a wildfire. Don't you worry a bit. He's out there somewhere. The walls of the kitchen, closing in on her. A headache radiating across her forehead from the tension in her brow. The feeling of her mother tousling her hair.
A few moments pass before the sound of Vickie's voice pulls Robin back into the present and she shuts the door and turns clumsily around and stumbles inside where Steve has begun to stir from his sleep.