The Last Good Day of the Year

by Jessica Warman

  “Stop!” Abby throws a handful of candy corn into the air like confetti. “It’s too funny! I can’t take it! I can’t breathe!”

  “You’re making a huge mess,” I say, picking pieces of candy corn from my hair. “It’s getting all over the floor, Abby. Who’s supposed to clean this up?”

  “You are!” she screeches, throwing another handful. I look at Gretchen for help, but she couldn’t care less. She taps the ash from the joint onto the floor and tilts her head back while she sucks in another lungful of smoke, which she’s still holding when Silver Pickup turns onto our street a minute later. The song “Get It Together” is blasting from the truck’s open windows. The vehicle barely comes to a full stop long enough to let Remy jump out before the driver makes a U-turn in the cul-de-sac and speeds away.

  “Excuse me.” I stand up and start walking toward the kitchen as casually as possible. “The smoke is bothering me.”

  “Bring me a beer, Sam,” Abby shouts, but my hand is already on the back door. I need to get out of this house. I need air, and a place where I can be alone. From the edge of our yard, I can still hear Abby’s laughter carrying on the breeze.

  I don’t have my driver’s license. Even if I did and could leave the house by myself, it’s not like I have any friends in this town. There’s nowhere for me to go. For a millisecond, I think of calling Noah, but that’s a terrible idea. As a kid, I always hid in the playhouse whenever I needed time to myself. Why can’t I do the same thing now?

  The playhouse door isn’t locked. Inside on the floor are a pillow, a short stack of books with an ashtray resting on top, and the Star Wars sleeping bag that Remy has had since we were toddlers. There’s a half-empty gallon jug of red wine and a deck of playing cards. A small hummingbird feeder hangs from a loop of silver wire in the window.

  It’s a warm night; the sleeping bag is enough to keep me comfortable for now. Remy’s bedroom light shines through his open window at the back of the house. I watch him pacing the room in slow circles while he talks on the phone, pausing once in a while to look at himself in the mirror or flip through the channels on his TV. His conversation lasts about five minutes. After he hangs up, he strips down to his boxer shorts and walks out of the room, probably heading to the shower.

  It gives me a strange thrill to be in here, watching him, without his knowledge. I know I shouldn’t be doing it, but it’s not like I’m hurting anyone. Besides, it’s really Remy’s fault for not closing his blinds. I settle deeper into the sleeping bag. I gather a handful of fabric in each fist and feel the rough, worn-out cloth in my hands, convinced that I’ve earned the right to trespass, that a part of Remy still belongs to me—will always belong to me—whether he likes it or not.

  “I want to die.” He was as calm as a stranger asking for the time. “Sometimes I think it already happened. Maybe we’re all dead, and this is hell. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  By then I considered Paul a friend. He wasn’t the kind of person to exaggerate things. I’d spent hour after hour with him and his family, and I felt a sense of kinship as a fellow husband and father. We sat across from each other in a corner booth at Denny’s. He ordered coffee and didn’t touch it. He was only forty-four but looked at least sixty. The restaurant was three short blocks from the Hilton he’d checked into a week earlier with the intention of ending his life. He told me in detail how he’d tied a rope around his neck and stood on a chair for over two hours while he tried to work up the courage to kick it away. In the end, he couldn’t do it.

  I did the only thing I could: I listed all the reasons I could think of for him to keep living. I reminded him of the people he’d be leaving behind. What would happen to Sharon, Samantha, and Gretchen? What would they do without him?

  “That’s the thing. That’s what makes it a hell. All I want to do is die, but I can’t. People always say the worst thing would be to lose everything. They say that, don’t they? If you lose everything, you have nothing left to live for. But they’ve got it all wrong. The worst thing is to lose almost everything, because then you have to keep going for whoever’s left down there with you in the steaming bog of shit that life becomes. You have to keep treading through the shit together just to keep everyone’s head above the surface. Forget any chance of escape. Forget it. We’ll never get out, none of us. We’re in it together until we die. One big happy family. And my daughter, my baby girl, is out there alone, and I can’t do a goddamn thing to help her. What if she’s alive? I know it’s impossible. I know that. And I’m glad about that, for her sake, because at least she’s not alone, wondering when someone will finally save her. The point is that I didn’t help her. You want to know the first thing I think about every morning? Before I even open my eyes? I wonder whether she called out for me or Sharon. Was it cold? Was it dark? She must have been so scared. Did she die while calling out for us? That’s how I start my days. And I deserve that. Don’t shake your head, because you know it’s true. This is my life and my hell, and this is where I have to stay, because if Sharon or Sam or Gretchen calls my name and I’m not there … I don’t know. I can’t think about it. It kills me every morning. I hear her screaming for me every morning.”

  Forty-Eight Minutes of Doubt, p. 77

  Chapter Eleven

  Summer 1996

  It’s so nice to have found a place of my own in the playhouse, even temporarily, that I try to forget the fact that it doesn’t belong to me and I don’t have permission to be here. Several nights have passed since the first time I spied on Remy from the playhouse, and each evening I’ve found myself returning after dark to this little room, with all its remnants of the long-lost comforts of my childhood.

  Tonight I’ve brought along a cardboard box filled with Grandma Bitty’s old photos from the basement. Except for the silver locket, the box is all I’ve kept so far. The only light I have to see the pictures with comes from a strand of multicolored Christmas lights strung around the playhouse ceiling, but it’s enough. Go look sometime at pictures of yourself as a cute, happy little kid, when life was easy and everyone wore ridiculous clothing. It’s a blast. I hover over a bunch of photos spread out across the floor, sifting silently through stack after stack, my eyes straining to stay focused in the dim light.

  For a second, I think I hear a light tapping on the door. I pause, holding my breath to listen. Nothing.

  “So there’s this beautiful woman who goes to see her doctor one day for a checkup,” Remy says, sticking his face through the open window.

  “What are you doing out here?” I scramble to hide the photos, shoving them back into the box and underneath the sleeping bag, but it’s too late.

  “What am I doing out here? That’s funny, Sam. This is my yard. What are you doing out here?” His gaze flicks around the tiny room. “You’d better not be drinking my wine.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Remy lifts his right hand to show me the six-pack of Rolling Rock he’s brought. “It feels like more of a beer night, anyway.” He sits cross-legged on the floor beside me, cracks open a can, and takes a few gulps. “So, as I was saying, this hot woman goes to the doctor. When he comes into the room, he’s stunned by how beautiful his patient is. The doctor considers himself a professional and a gentleman, but sometimes a person can’t help himself. He tries to do the exam as usual, but eventually he starts rubbing her thighs.”

  “I’ve already heard this one.”

  “I know.” He offers me one of the beers. “But it’s a good one.”

  “Maybe if you’re twelve years old.” It’s the same joke we overheard Remy’s dad tell that New Year’s Eve.

  “Oh, I think it’s universally funny. When she tells the doctor she’s there to be tested for herpes, but they’ve already had sex? What’s not funny about that?”

  “Right. Because the best jokes are the ones you have to explain.”

  “No, the best jokes are about naked women.”

  I close my eyes for a few seconds, hoping that he’ll
be gone when I open them. It doesn’t work. “Why are you out here?”

  “Don’t you want this?” He means the beer.

  “No.” I could cry. Now that he knows I’ve been coming here, it’s ruined. “Why are you here, Remy? What do you want?”

  “I told you, it’s my yard. I can come out here whenever I want. You, on the other hand, cannot.”

  “Why do you get to decide that? This place isn’t yours, either, not technically. You didn’t build it.”

  “But it’s on my property.”

  “It’s barely on your property. Ed built it for all of us. He only used your yard because the tree was the right size.”

  “Ed’s not in charge of much around here, Sam. Not lately.”

  “Your parents wouldn’t care, either.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. But I care.” He glances down at all the pictures. “Were those my grandma’s? Did you steal them?”

  “I didn’t steal them. Your mom told me to throw them away, but I kept them instead.”

  “So you stole them.”

  “No! I told you, I only—”

  “Relax, Sam. I’m kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  He picks up a stack of photos and brings them closer to his face as he looks through them. “Are you sure my mom meant for you to throw away all of these? Some of them look like ones she’d want to keep.”

  “I think so.”

  “Wow, these are crazy. I forgot they existed.” His eyes flash with nostalgia as he takes in each picture, and for a moment I think I see the Remy I remember.

  Looking at the photos makes me self-conscious about the fact that Remy and I used to spend so much time together. There are only a handful of shots of him that don’t include me. “Did we do anything without each other?” He flips through a few shots of us naked in the tub together, our lower bodies obscured by a thick layer of bubbles. The date scribbled on the back reads 8/25/79; we weren’t even two years old. In another—this one from October ’85—we’re standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk in Halloween costumes. Remy’s a cowboy; I’m an Indian princess. Gretchen is in the background, posing like an aspiring model in her witch costume. Her black skirt is too short for a sixteen-year-old, and her legs seem unsteady as she balances on five-inch stilettos. Turtle stands on the periphery of the scene, her form blurred as she twirls gleefully in a pink ballerina costume. It is Halloween night, exactly two months before she disappeared, and the fact that her features are fuzzy gives me a sick, dizzy feeling. It’s as if she was already starting to fade.

  “Why did you come back?” Remy flicks the photo aside and fixes his gaze on me. “I’m not talking about Gretchen; I know why she’s here. Why did the rest of your family come back?”

  “My dad lost his job. We had no choice.”

  “No jobs in Virginia, eh?”

  “It’s temporary.”

  “Everything’s temporary, Sam.”

  “That’s so philosophical of you.”

  “I’m a pretty deep guy.” He looks pleased with himself, which makes me want to scream.

  “Listen, Remy, I know it’s weird to be here, okay? I get it. But what were we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Weren’t you upset that you had to leave all your friends with only one year of high school to go? Wasn’t there anyone you could have stayed with until graduation? It’s not like your parents would be across the country. It’s only a four-hour drive.”

  “There was someone.” I pause. “But it didn’t work out. It wouldn’t have worked out, so I didn’t stay with him.”

  “I see. With him. How interesting.”

  “Stop it.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Rudolf Schmidt.” Obviously, I’m lying.

  “That’s funny. So here you are, anyway.”

  “So here I am. Here we are, Remy.”

  “What are you like now, Samantha? Because here’s how I remember you: you were loud and funny, and you could fart on command. We used to play this game with my plastic army men and your humidifier; do you remember the one I mean?”

  “Yes!” I almost shriek. Remy leans away from me, as if to create more room for my enthusiasm, and I feel embarrassed that I’ve let myself show so much excitement over a children’s game. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. That was the best game! We used to make such incredible special effects with the steam from the humidifier.” The air in the playhouse is hot, and the cool breeze from the open window has the pinch of a bee sting when it hits my face.

  “You have the same ears.” He reaches out, brushing my earlobe with his fingertip. “So what are you like now? You didn’t answer me.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Well, here’s what I’m like.” He pauses and pulls his hand away from my ear. “Sorry. I’m not trying to grope you or anything.”

  “It’s only my ear. I don’t feel groped.”

  “Yeah, well … the thing is, my girlfriend maybe wouldn’t quite, like, be excited to know that we were in here alone at night and I touched your ear, okay?”

  “Oh, okay. I won’t bring it up right away the first time I meet her, then, because that’s what I was planning to do.”

  “I see. You’re clever.” He taps his nose and points at me like you would in a game of Charades.

  “I don’t know about clever. I’m smart. I get good grades.”

  “I almost didn’t pass my junior year,” he says. “My parents are concerned that I’m wasting my potential.”

  “My parents don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I’m good. Boring and good. I’ve never even drunk a beer.”

  Remy makes the same perplexed frown that I’ve seen on Gretchen’s face so many times before. I’m a disappointment to both of them, but Remy doesn’t want to accept it so easily. “Oh, yeah? That’s about to change.” He reaches for the six-pack.

  “I don’t—”

  “Shush. It’s my playhouse; I make the rules.” He stares at me, dead serious. “It’s international playhouse law, Samantha. A smart girl like you should know that.”

  Remy opens a beer and brings it closer and closer to my lips until I reach out and take it. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and watches me as I drink. I take a few little sips. It’s not bad. I mean, I’ve tasted alcohol before—a sip here and there from one of my dad’s cans of Coors when I was younger, just to see what it was like—but I’ve never been drunk. There are circles of sweat beneath the arms of Remy’s T-shirt, and he smells the way you’d imagine a teenage boy would smell at the end of a hot summer day. It’s the strangest feeling to go from then to now with ten years of static in between; I remember him as a boy who was nothing but my best friend, but now it’s impossible not to notice that his body is all grown up.

  “So you’re the smart one and the good one,” he repeats. “It’s, like, your role in your family.”

  “Yeah.” I force down a few more mouthfuls of beer.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “I guess so.” The truth is, I’ve never given the matter much thought before now. “It’s easy for me. I’ve never had any problems in school. I don’t cause trouble. It makes my parents happier.”

  He looks disappointed. “No trouble at all?”

  I pretend to try to remember. “I stole a Kit Kat from a gas station once.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, God. If that’s the worst thing you were willing to make up …”

  “I told you, I’m very well behaved.”

  “Obviously. It’s disgusting. So if you’re the good one,” he continues, “what does that make Gretchen?”

  “Do you have to ask?” I shuffle through a stack of photos taken in Remy’s living room during one of Darla’s in-home Mary Kay Cosmetics parties.

  “Fair enough. What’s with her haircut? Isn’t it supposed to be a sign of, like, huge emotional distress when a person chops all their hair off ou
t of nowhere? And she’s, what—divorced? About to get divorced?”

  “I don’t know, Remy.”

  “Does she seem normal to you?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe. I have no idea what normal is for Gretchen.” I hold up my hand and start ticking off everything I can say for sure about her on my fingertips: “She showed up at our house at the end of May, alone, and I don’t know what’s going on with her husband, Michelangelo, or if she’s ever going back to him. She’s a dental hygienist over in Penn Village. My mother hates her. Gretchen’s probably permanently, irredeemably fucked up forever and ever, no matter what, because of what happened to Turtle. And she’s rocking the short hair.”

  “Okay, I get it. What about Hannah?”

  I wince at the sound of her name. “You know what she is.”

  “She’s the replacement.” He stretches out each syllable as he pronounces it, taking his time to let the implications settle in the air around us.

  “My mom would have died.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she was almost dead already, even though she was still walking and talking and breathing. Before Hannah was born. You don’t know what it was like before then, and it got worse when Davis’s book came out. She was so sad, Remy.”

  “And now she’s happy? The pageant stuff with Hannah is creepy, Sam.”

  “It’s not creepy. Lots of kids do it. Hannah has been taking dance lessons since she started walking, so it makes sense for her.”

  Remy shrugs. “My mom thinks it’s gross.”

  “She does?”

  “Yes. She and your mom aren’t going to be close again, you know. She doesn’t even like my dad hanging out with your dad all the time.” He’s staring me right in the eyes. I don’t remember him being this mean.

  “I don’t believe you. Our moms are best friends.”

  “They were best friends, Sam. Things are different. Your family moved away ten years ago. You think my parents want to think about this stuff all over again? It’s not like we can just pretend nothing happened and start up a bowling league. We haven’t exactly been dying to get the old gang back together.”