Spontaneous

by Aaron Starmer

  Another bout of silence and then a squeaky voice called out, “No, Clint, no!”

  “It’s true,” he said, gazing sympathetically across the crowd to the source of the voice, devoted football-team stat-keeper Marcy Hand. “I’ve been so keyed up, so itching to get laid all the time that I think it’s, like, my sexual energy. It’s too much for people’s bodies to handle.”

  All right . . . interesting.

  And there was more. Laura Riggs sidled in and snagged the microphone next.

  “Sorry, Clint, you’re hot, but not that hot,” she said. “It’s me, actually. I’m the Curse. I’ve been fucking around with witchcraft for a while now. Ancient chants and things like that. I’ve got this class picture from eighth grade and one day I pricked my finger and dripped blood on the faces of people I don’t like. That includes everyone who died. Plenty of others too. So, yeah, there’s a whole lot more to look forward to. I’d like to say I’m sorry, but . . . sorry, not sorry.”

  There were whispers in the crowd.

  “I thought it was me.”

  “I was sure it was me.”

  “I’m the Curse. I’ve always been the Curse. Haven’t I?”

  Thank you, Mr. Spiros, for the crash course in the classics, because suddenly it felt like I was being mocked by a Greek chorus. It was like I was the subject of some ancient fucking tragedy, the fool who was only now discovering how foolish I truly was, something the audience had known since the curtain had opened. I stepped offstage and put my hands over my ears.

  No amount of muffling, however, could block out the sounds of Tick, Tick, Tick . . . Either in an attempt to distract us from the confessions, or in a bid to celebrate them, the band burst into another tune and Benji recaptured the microphone. It was a song everyone in the room knew by heart, that everyone in New Jersey knows by heart. It was the song Tess and I used to sing when we rode our bikes down the shore. It was the song Dylan played in the silo on a day that felt so long ago, but wasn’t even nine months ago.

  Tommy used to work on the docks,

  Union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck . . .

  It’s tough, so tough

  Fists began pumping and everyone was suddenly singing along and there was relief on so many faces and weight off so many shoulders, but not mine. Definitely not mine. Even in the moments following Dylan’s death, I had not felt this aimless. It wasn’t like I’d been waking up every morning with a plan, but I usually had a vague idea of how I would approach the day. Booze, school, booze, sleep, booze, sleep, put on a dress, and go martyr myself at prom.

  Now? Well, I hardly knew how to breathe.

  And I didn’t breathe, at least not for a few moments. Feet stomped and the dance floor shook. Catharsis was in full effect as the singing got louder.

  She says we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got

  It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not

  We’ve got each other and that’s a lot . . . for love

  We’ll give it a shot.

  Someone placed a hand on my shoulder, to pull me into the current of the sing-along. It rebooted my lungs and I brushed off the hand without checking to see whose hand it was. My eyes locked on the bar, I fought through the crowd, and grabbed the first bottle in reach. Vermouth. Swigging from it, I slipped out the emergency exit in the back.

  the weather

  The sun was down and it was raining. A cold rain, but one that washed the shock from my body as I trudged up a grassy hill. When I reached the top, I sat down. The hotel and its Prius-stuffed parking lot was now below me. Beyond the hotel was the Patchcong River Gorge, cloaked in a veil of drizzle. I kicked off my shoes and they shot down the hill like it was a log flume.

  I sat there drinking and feeling sorry for myself. Then I sat there drinking and feeling angry at myself. Then I sat there drinking and feeling nothing, watching the rain like every pitiful person who ever thought that rain can stand in for emotions when, really, it’s only weather. Stupid fucking weather.

  Still, something good came out of that weather. Tess. She emerged from the downpour like a dream within a dream—an implausibility buried in implausibility. Her makeup was streaked across her temples and her dress was bunched at the back, creating a small crimson train that followed her as she marched up the hill.

  “I always know where to find you,” she said when she sat down.

  Cross-legged, I wedged the bottle in my lap, put my chin in my hands, and replied, “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You certainly did that,” I said, and I downed another mouthful. “Please tell me you’re also here because you have it figured out.”

  “I wish I could. The tracking device? Handled. I think. To deal with the rest I need to get out of this place.”

  “You know I thought I had it figured out. I thought I had it all wrapped up.”

  “So did everyone else, apparently,” Tess said with an empathetic sigh. “I guess it’s natural to look inward.”

  “Where else are we supposed to look?”

  Tess didn’t answer the question, but where she looked was at me. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About our friendship and how it doesn’t make sense.”

  “I say a lot of shit,” I replied, and I took another slug from the bottle. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference, obviously.”

  “No, it does,” she said as she pushed her wet bangs out of her face. “It’s something we have to consider.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Let’s say someone figures this out? Let’s say we both survive this and live to be old ladies.”

  “Then we get a house down the shore together and wear kimonos and smoke hookahs and do old lady shit like we’ve always said we would.”

  She embraced herself and shook her head. Her makeup had washed off entirely and now she was this soaked and shivering girl. Scratch that. She was this soaked and shivering and gorgeous woman in this stunning red dress. Who was telling me to stop being naive.

  “Let’s enjoy what we have, while we have it,” she said.

  “That’s what you’re supposed to say. But that’s not what I want.”

  “You want senior year to do over again?”

  “I don’t know. You wrote We made it in my yearbook.”

  “Yeah, so? We did make it.”

  “That’s not what it’s been about for me.”

  Tess put a hand on my knee. “I realize that, but I’m so proud of you, Mara. For being who you are.”

  “What if I killed him?” I asked her softly. “What if I killed them all? By being who I am.”

  Tess didn’t laugh or call me silly or selfish. She simply smiled and said, “You’re a force of nature, Ms. Carlyle. That’s the one thing I know for sure and the one thing I’d never change about you.”

  I took one more gulp of vermouth, tossed the bottle to the side, and I leaned into her. I let my body slide down her body until my head was in her lap, like I’d done so many times in the past.

  “I love you,” I said. “Bunches and bunches and bunches.”

  “We’re the same,” Tess told me.

  I closed my eyes and replied, “You know that’s not true. I’m a fuckup and you’re . . . well, Tess. Which is the opposite.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about this whole crazy situation. It hasn’t changed us at all, has it?”

  I battled to keep my eyelids open as I whispered, “That’s good, right? Tess and Mara. BFFFs. Best fucking friends forever.”

  “Yeah,” Tess said with another empathetic sigh. “But things are changing. Even if all the terrible stuff hadn’t happened, things were always going to change. There was no stopping that.”

  The thumping bass drum coming from the hotel sent vibrations up the hill that m
ade the raindrops on the grass shimmy. Inside, the party raged on, and if anyone was spontaneously combusting out on the dance floor, then no one was bothered enough by it to storm the exits. The doors remained closed, the parking lot sedate.

  Even if I had a response—which in this very rare moment, I did not—I still couldn’t fight off the grip of the drunk. Tess’s face went blurry, so I closed my eyes to refocus. They stayed closed, and the rain, as cold as it was, worked like a lullaby. Pittering, pattering, coaxing my exhausted body to sleep.

  i’ll come running to see you again

  Do you want to know what I dreamt about? Do you want to analyze the images that flicked across my unconscious mind? Of course you don’t. No one cares about anyone else’s dreams because they don’t matter. Not really. The only thing that matters is what comes next.

  What came next was I woke with a start, exactly where I fell asleep—in the grass, on the top of that hill. Only now I was alone. I don’t know what woke me. My dizziness made the possibilities as muddy as the earth. The rain was pounding and the grass was matted and brown. Maybe even a little red, like blood, but it was hard to tell in the darkness.

  “Tess,” I called out. There was a patch of forest behind me and I pulled myself to my feet so I could get a clear view of it. I didn’t spot anyone sneaking away or crouching behind a tree for a whiz.

  “Tess!” I called again, louder this time, then took a step and slipped. The wet grass sent me zipping down the hill. I had enough wits to slow my momentum by digging my bare heels into the ground and when I reached the bottom, I rolled into a patch of mulch, and lay there for a moment on my stomach, breathing in its sour earthiness. It worked like smelling salts, slapping me fully awake. I stood, but I didn’t bother to wipe myself off.

  “Tess!” I yelled, as loudly as I could, and I ran toward the hotel. I tried the emergency exit, but it was locked, so I circled around to the front of the building and passed through the parking lot. Amid the sea of dorky Priuses was a beacon of cool.

  A Tesla.

  There was only one person in Covington I knew who drove a Tesla. Sure enough, Rosetti was sitting behind the wheel, her face revealed with each pulse of the wipers.

  “Tess!” I yelled once more, but I yelled it at the car, and it was the first time I noticed the similarity in the names.

  The headlights flicked on and the Tesla crept toward me. I didn’t budge. When it was a few feet away, it started to turn, trying to sneak around me, but I moved back in front of it and with a hand sliding along the curve of the hood, I made my way to the driver’s side door and banged on the glass.

  “Did you see her?” I asked. “Did Tess come this way?”

  The window eased down and I got a good look at Carla. I’m calling her Carla now for a good reason. In the glow of the dashboard lights, she didn’t look like Special Agent Carla Rosetti of the FBI. She looked like Carla, a woman who was wearing her hair up and had a smear of eye shadow across her lids. Lavender, to match her dress.

  “What did you say?” Carla asked.

  “Tess,” I told her. “She was with me, and then she was gone. Did you see her leave?”

  I leaned in to check if Tess was maybe a passenger in the car, and as I did, I heard music coming from the speakers. It was like a low-volume dance party in there. I didn’t see my friend but I noticed that Carla wasn’t looking at me. With her chin bobbing to the beat, she was staring through the windshield at the hotel.

  “People have been coming and going all night,” she said. “It’s quite an event.”

  That’s when I realized I’d seen the dress Carla was wearing before. When I was stalking her online, I’d noticed it in a series of wedding photos. It was the bridesmaid dress she’d worn once. To a friend’s wedding. A good friend? An old friend? A former friend? I had no idea.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Stakeout,” Carla said. “Making sure everything is on the up-and-up.”

  “But you’re not even an FBI agent anymore, are you? I mean, Meadows seemed to indicate that—”

  I stopped short because I spotted taillights nearby, moving on the far end of the lot toward the road that snaked away from the hotel along the edge of the gorge. There was no engine roar to accompany the lights. It was one of the Priuses, carrying someone away from prom.

  “That could be Tess in there!” I shouted, pointing. “We should follow her. We can’t let her get away.”

  As I started moving toward the other side of the car, the sound of locks engaging stopped me in my tracks.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Carla said. “This is where I need to be.”

  “There’s nothing here if Tess isn’t here,” I explained as I stepped back toward the driver’s side window. “We need to catch her. We need to make sure she doesn’t leave.”

  “I am not. Going. Anywhere.” Carla’s voice was full of insolence and her eyes remained glued to the hotel.

  Thirty-six. Again, that’s how old I had calculated Carla to be. Which isn’t old, I know, but it’s twice my age. If she were the Jane Rolling of her class, she could be my mom. By that logic, she could be a grandma. Yet, in truth, I know she would never have let any poopy diapers slow down her career. It was a career full of accomplishments, of busting baddies and making the world a better place. Admirable. Incredible, even, especially for a woman in a field dominated by men. Yet here she was, sitting in a hotel parking lot, on a “stakeout” of a prom. I can’t say I had her entirely figured out, but the things I was discovering scared me. For too long, I had dreamt of being like Carla. Now I legitimately feared it was my fate.

  Consider this: Back when I was in elementary school, I couldn’t possibly imagine what it was like to be in middle school. Then middle-school me couldn’t fathom my high-school incarnation. But at that moment, staring at Carla, I was staring at my future. Which was full of anger. Suspicion. Regret.

  “Tess,” I pleaded.

  “That’s the problem with your generation,” Carla said, finally turning to me. “You assume everything should be given to you simply because you want it. But when you get what you want, do you appreciate it? No. You take a selfie and move on to something else. Entitled. Little. Brats.”

  “Tess,” I said. “Tess.”

  Carla stuck a finger out the window and rain dripped off the purple-polished nail. As she pointed at the taillights from the Prius that had briefly paused at the edge of the lot before turning onto the road, Carla said, “Fuck Tess.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck. Tess.”

  Really? Really? Oh, she should have known better than that. I had suffered needles, concussions, dead boyfriends, and flip phones for this woman. Now she expected me to stand there and listen to that shit? Did she not realize I was a girl with absolutely nothing left to lose and daily training in Krav Maga?

  My training had served me well. I stepped forward, swiped, and got a hold of that finger. For a moment, I felt like my uncle’s dog must’ve felt after he caught a squirrel he’d been chasing for months around the backyard birdfeeder. As in, Um . . . I actually did it? Can I possibly go through with this?

  When Carla tried to wiggle her hand free and grunted, “You pathetic little child,” the answer became a resounding You bet your sweet bippy I can.

  I bent the finger back with mighty force. And it worked. Man, did it work.

  “You are gonna get out of that car,” I told her.

  Which was a foregone conclusion, given how much pain she was obviously in. “Okay, okay, o—gahhh!” she shrieked.

  “Now!” I ordered.

  With her free hand, she disengaged the locks. I gave her finger another push and she opened the door. One more push and Carla Rosetti, former special agent of the FBI, tumbled out onto wet pavement.

  I could have kicked her. I could have stepped on her back and left a footprint on he
r dusty-ass bridesmaid dress. But I don’t think she deserved that. And I am many things, but I am not a sadist. I am, as I told Dylan once, an opportunist, and opportunity was presenting me with a seat, a steering wheel, and an accelerator (or whatever the fuck you call a gas pedal on an electric car).

  start your electric motors

  Wanna guess the last time I’d driven a car? No? Okay, then I’ll just tell you.

  It was the day I got my license. On a bright summer morning after sophomore year, I saddled up with the evaluator guy in Mom’s Subaru. I adjusted the mirrors, drove a few blocks, parallel parked, used the turn signals, pulled back into traffic, made a few left hand turns, and returned to the DMV lot. The guy checked off some boxes on a sheet and shook my hand. Twenty minutes later, some glossy-eyed lady gave me a glossy license with a glossy-eyed picture of me on it, and I told Mom, “See, I can do it. Now drive me home.”

  Nearly two years ago, in other words.

  Goes without saying that I wasn’t quite ready for NASCAR, but I figured I could at least catch up to a computer-navigated sedan that was obliged to follow all traffic laws. So I stepped on the accelerator and the Tesla’s motor hummed in satisfaction. The car had been waiting its entire battery-powered life for a moment like this, and it was a real champ handling the tight curve from the parking lot onto the road that snaked away from the hotel. Like that, I was in hot pursuit of those taillights.

  Now I know what you’re thinking.

  Oh, you poor dope. Did you really believe Tess was in that Prius? It could have been anyone in there, right? Didn’t you suspect it was more likely that something else happened to your friend? That some other, more terrible fate befell her?

  Maybe I did, but I was only willing to accept one scenario at that point. I was focusing on the long odds, on the possibility that Tess had slipped off without saying good-bye because good-byes are a monster. Fuck good-byes and their gripping claws and endless slobber. I never planned to say good-bye to Tess and I assumed she never planned to say good-bye to me. But maybe Tess planned to leave me behind, to set off on a quest to fix this thing that not even the professionals and adults were capable of fixing. So feel free to pity me for chasing that sliver of hope, but please understand that I wasn’t chasing a good-bye. I wanted to leave with Tess. There was nothing for me in Covington without her.