Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

by Theodora Armstrong

  I don’t know how to explain to Kate how wrong she is about everything. This time I learn to control my tears and they only trickle out of my eyes silently. Kate leans over my face, her hair tickling my cheeks. She says, “Okay, let’s be different then. We can just BE different.” Right away the tears evaporate, and for most of the night I believe her, until I hear her later, when we’re back inside the party, telling Rana she should BE different too.

  I WAKE UP IN the morning on the grass in front of Kate’s tent, shivering so hard my teeth clack together. The lawn is covered in dew and the sky’s an uncertain silver, like the day hasn’t yet decided what kind of day it wants to be. I unzip the tent to find Kate and Elgin buried under blankets. Inside the house, I step carefully around sleeping kids. I have to wake up some guy in the bathtub so I can pee, and then I dig through my pockets, lining up coins on the bathroom counter and praying for enough to get home on the bus.

  I’m walking across the front yard when I find Max. He’s in the bushes, halfway into the neighbour’s property, like he’s fallen asleep while trying to escape something. I shake his leg and then give it a tug. He sits up, staring at me like he doesn’t recognize who I am. His arms are cut up, short, bloody slashes running diagonally from his wrists to his elbows. There’s a piece of broken beer bottle in the grass. We both look at his arms like they aren’t his own. I pull him up, taking him next door to find help, and it’s like guiding a small child by the shoulders. I don’t say anything. I don’t say, Max, what happened, or Max, are you okay, or Max, what the fuck, you can’t do stuff like that. There are so many things I could say, but I say nothing.

  I guide him with the tips of my fingers, barely touching him, to a stranger’s front yard. We stand on the porch together and Max stares out at the street while I ring the doorbell. When an older woman in her housecoat answers the door, I realize I have no words to explain. I turn Max gently to face her so she can see what he has done.

  ON OUR LAST DAY at Outdoor School they gathered everyone in the large field beside the parking lot for a game of Predator-Prey. They assigned all the kids an animal — bear, owl, skunk, coyote, squirrel. The point was to eat. The predators ate the prey by tapping them on the shoulder. The prey found cardboard food tickets in ice cream buckets scattered around the forest. The counselors were disease and they could eat anything. They set the boundaries for us: to the right, the river and mountains; to the left, the highway; straight ahead we could go as far as the power lines. Kate and I were deer. We stuck together from the start. I made sure to stand next to her before we were given the signal to hide — three long whistle blows. We had three minutes alone in the forest before the predators were let loose. You could hear them howling and barking. Max was a wolf. You could pick out his yowl, short and yippy like he really wanted to get out there, like he couldn’t wait. While we ran, Kate laid out a plan. We’d find a spot to hide, and later, once the predators had tired themselves out, we would go find the food buckets. We ran past some kids hiding in a hollowed out tree, one of them laughing hysterically. “They’ll find you there,” Kate said, as we went by. “Idiots,” she shouted back to me.

  The whistle blew again: one long shriek, signalling the release of the predators. We found a path along the river that led deep into the forest and Kate pulled me down the side of a slope, both of us sliding through the mud, landing next to the river. The water was shallow and the riverbed bare in spots. We crept along the narrow bank until we found a small cave in the roots of a tree where water had eroded the dirt. Crouched in the tangle of roots, our shoes sunk in the mud, Kate pulled me close, hooking her arm around my waist. We plugged our noses against the stench of rotting salmon, the greasy humps of their decaying bodies all down the drained riverbed. Kate’s eyes were sharp, her muscles tensed for a quick escape. I could feel my blood speeding through my veins. Above us we listened to the stamp of feet through the forest, the shouts as kids were caught. Counsellors yelled at the ones who were tackling. We shook with silent laughter and the exhilaration of hiding. Kate pressed a hand over my mouth. “Quiet,” she whispered, but her eyes shone. We had found a good spot.

  We huddled in our hole until the game was almost over, the forest gone quiet so all we could hear were the leaves turning and falling around us. Weaving through the trees, Kate spotted a food bucket behind a large pine, little tickets scattered across the ground in greedy hunger. Neither one of us heard Max coming up the path behind us as we stooped to grab as many tickets as we could, but Kate saw him first. She dashed off, crashing through a tight thicket of bushes, a trail of tickets fluttering behind her. I froze exactly like a deer would. I pressed my back to the tree as Max approached slowly, his breathing calm and shallow, his eyes over every inch of me as they looked for any twitch of an escape. He raised his two hands, palms cupped inches from each other as though I were a small bird he was trying to trap. As he got closer, I got smaller and smaller until his two hands came down, resting gently on top of my shoulders. “Got you,” he said.

  We all waited a long time for Kate to get caught. There must have been at least sixty kids sprawled out on the big field under the power lines, all of us waiting for her. Eventually, they had to send counsellors in to look for her. I never told anyone where Kate might be.

  Max was the best predator, having caught the most prey. He paced the edge of the field, desperate to go out and find her, but the counsellors said no. They said the last thing they needed were two kids lost in the forest. One was bad enough.

  ~

  KATE CALLS TO TELL me Max jumped off the Lions Gate Bridge. I’m sitting downstairs in the family room watching TV. Kate starts to cry on the phone. I haven’t talked to her in months. She says, “I thought you’d want to know.” She tells me they found Max floating in the water around Ambleside Beach and the memorial service is this weekend. I want to talk to her, but I just say thanks and hang up the phone.

  On the TV, girls are pinching the skin on their thighs and stomachs. I go to the bathroom and try to throw up, but I can’t. I look in the mirror and pull the skin under my eyes, but I don’t cry. My hair is soft and wavy, the way it looks sometimes when I wake up. It looks good and I wish I had someplace to go, but lately on the weekends all I do is watch TV with my parents. Sometimes I go to Rana’s to watch a movie or play Monopoly, but most of the time I’m too tired. Mom thinks I should go see the doctor again because I like to take long naps in the afternoon after I get home from school. She asks me why I sleep so much and I tell her it’s schoolwork, but the real reason is because sleep is so easy.

  I sit on the bathroom floor and stare at the quilted pattern on the toilet paper roll, trying to make myself feel guilty, but there’s nothing inside of me. Even with all this emptiness there’s no room for Max here. I pull one of the towels down from the rack and roll it into a pillow. I can sleep anywhere now.

  AFTER THE MEMORIAL SERVICE, Kate stands smoking in the shade of the tall hedges beside the funeral home. I walk over to say hello and we stand together quietly for a minute looking past the cemetery and over the trees toward the highway. “I didn’t sleep last night,” Kate says finally. Her face is cool, almost cold. People gather and mill around the parking lot. Max’s older brother is standing by the front doors talking with someone, absentmindedly plucking leaves from a bush.

  “Can I bum a smoke?” I say. Kate hands me her pack. She tilts her head to examine me until I feel uncomfortable. I pause when I see there’s only one cigarette left. “Smoke it. Enjoy,” she says. She has a new expression, something she does with her lips, fattening them into a pout to punctuate her sentences.

  When I introduced myself to Max’s mother, I shook her hand and said, “Hi, you don’t know me.” She was walking down the long line of people waiting to get into the funeral home. I was staring at the poster board by the front door with Max’s school picture from last year pinned to it, his hair combed and neatly parted to the left in a way I’ve never s
een him do it before. Usually his hair hung down kind of scraggly and the most he’d do was tuck it behind his ears. I was distracted thinking about how his hair was his best feature, when his mother appeared in front of me with her hand extended. I wasn’t prepared for her dull, river-stone eyes, flat and lifeless. I was grateful when Kate leaned past me and took her hand.

  I smoke quickly. “Where’s Elgin?”

  “Elgin?” Kate seems confused by the question. “At home.”

  “Oh.” I focus on the burning tip of the cigarette. “I thought he’d be here.”

  “No.” Kate shrugs, ashing in the hedge. “He hates funerals.” She turns her gaze back to the distant highway noise. “I felt this duty to come. We weren’t close with him like you.”

  “I wasn’t close with him,” I say, maybe too quickly. I’m glad I didn’t cry during the service. I thought about whether I should try to, but now I’m glad I didn’t.

  “Well, you guys did get together that one time,” Kate says, turning to look over the crowd, to look anywhere but at me. “That must mean something.”

  “Yeah, but — ” I look back at the funeral home. The doors are closed and someone is locking them now. The cops said Max wasn’t high when he jumped from the bridge. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it doesn’t mean much of anything when the result is the same.

  “I don’t mean anything by it,” Kate says. “I just mean it must be harder for you.”

  “I know.” My fingers fiddle with the hem of my shirt.

  “And I didn’t spread those rumours about you,” she says all of a sudden. She squints into the crowd as though she’s looking for the person who did. “I know you think it was me.”

  “What rumours?” I say, pretending to have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “You know, that you’ve slept with a bunch of people.”

  I nod; I’ve learned it’s better to say almost nothing if you want to keep up a charade.

  “I mean, I know you’re not a slut or anything, obviously. I don’t know why people are saying that,” Kate says matter-of-factly.

  “It’s fine.” I shrug my shoulders.

  “I guess so,” Kate says, “if you don’t care.”

  Max’s mother is standing at the edge of the cemetery, staring at a tree. She looks like she’s being held up by a piece of thread. Someone should be standing beside her.

  “So,” Kate says, butting out her cigarette, “what are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing.” I was planning to go to bed early, but I don’t tell that to Kate.

  “Want to go to the dam?” She’s already heading for the bus stop, talking to me over her shoulder. “It would be good to hang out. We’ll, like, remember Max and stuff.”

  “Okay.” I have no idea if she hears me. I stand there waiting, smoking my cigarette down to the filter, until the bus comes and she gets on.

  As I’m leaving, someone puts Max’s mother into a car. They have to bend her knees and lift her legs inside.

  THE BUS IS FULL of night skiers and boarders as it travels up Capilano Road. I get off near the base of Grouse. There’s still snow on the mountain even though it’s spring, and I stuff my hands in my pockets, making my way across the street. The mountains are so tall it’s like they’re folding over, the last colours of the day gone now, black inking itself out of the trees into the sky. At the base of Grouse, the reservoir is as still as a mirror, reflecting the icy caps of the mountains. It all feels like glass, as if any loud noise — even one from far away — could shatter everything to pieces.

  When I get to the dam Kate’s not there yet. I peer over the edge and watch the water pour down, a mist coating the bottom of the canyon and winding through the trees, making the rocks sparkle in the dark. I pull a stone from my pocket — I always bring stuff to throw into the dam — and toss it into the arc of water, losing sight of it almost as soon as it leaves my hand. The longer I stare at the spiralling water, the more I feel as though I’m falling, but I never find the rocks below, I just keep spinning out of control, unable to grasp anything or anyone around me. In a lot of ways I feel like Max dragged me down with him. If he knew he was going to end it all, why did he let me get close to him at Mosquito Creek? He could have said, I’m fucked up. Stay away.

  I can hear Kate before I see her, her laugh ricocheting through the trees. I turn to face the dam to hide my disappointment when I see Elgin with her. “Sorry we’re late,” she calls as they walk toward me hand in hand. They’re both drinking beer.

  “I just got here,” I say.

  “Want one?” Elgin pulls a can from his knapsack and throws it at me without waiting for my answer.

  “Thanks,” I say, cracking it open and flicking the tab into the gully.

  “We used to chuck things down there,” Kate says, grinning as she peers over the edge. “Your math book and my crappy runners.”

  “I almost failed math,” I say.

  “Those runners were ugly. I had to quit track and field because my mom wouldn’t buy me a new pair,” Kate says, wrapping an arm around Elgin’s waist. “We were so stupid.”

  Elgin leans over the edge and sticks out his tongue, trying to taste the mist. “This place makes me feel really insignificant.”

  “You’re totally stoned,” Kate laughs.

  He grins, slamming back the rest of his beer and launching the can in a graceful arc over the falls. Kate climbs up onto the concrete wall and straddles it. “Remember when we used to play that game at the cliffs?”

  “Kate,” Elgin says, “get off there. You’re high.”

  “Do you remember?” she says to me, ignoring him.

  “It’s gone now,” I say. I didn’t notice she was high at first, but now I can hear the effects of the weed in her voice, the heavy-tongued silliness.

  “What do you mean gone?” Her voice echoes off the rocks below.

  “Yeah. The cliff, it’s like a condo development now,” I say.

  “What?” Kate pushes herself onto her knees, a cat on the fence. She looks sad, but I can’t tell if it’s genuine or an act or the weed making her phony. “But that was our place. We went there almost every day in grade seven.”

  “I’ll give you a toke if you get down,” Elgin says, lighting a joint and waving it in front of her face.

  “I don’t need your skunky pot.” Kate slowly pushes herself up to a standing position, holding her arms out for balance. “I was always better than you at that game,” Kate laughs, loud and forced. “Braver.”

  “Get down,” Elgin says, his voice sharp. Suddenly he looks sober. He grabs one of Kate’s pant legs.

  “Let go.” She shakes him off and takes careful steps, placing one foot slowly in front of the other, pointing her toes like a ballerina. “You wouldn’t do this, would you?” she says, smiling at me.

  “Get down now. I’m serious.” Elgin goes to grab her again and she takes a wide step back.

  “Fuck off,” she says, and I can see there are tears in her eyes. “Just look at me,” she says, holding her arms above her head. “Do I look insignificant?”

  “No,” Elgin says. “You look really fucking special right now.”

  “Kate, you’re going to fall,” I say, holding out my hand to her. “Please.”

  “Fine.” Kate does a pirouette then takes my hand and hops off the wall, casually wiping a tear off her cheek.

  “Why do you do shit like that?” Elgin says. All the mellowness has left him and he’s pacing now.

  “For thrills.” Kate plucks the joint from his fingers. “Don’t you ever get bored of yourself?”

  “I get bored of this shit.” Elgin squints through a puff of her smoke. “You want to be fished out of that river and forgotten.”

  “What, like Max?” Kate says. She takes a long drag. “Max was messed in the head. He c
ouldn’t handle anything. He couldn’t handle school and he couldn’t handle his parents splitting and he couldn’t handle girls. Right?” Kate says, looking at me for affirmation. “He couldn’t even handle you.”

  “I don’t know,” I stammer, caught off guard by Kate’s question. “I don’t know why he did it.”

  “Leave her alone,” Elgin says, turning back to the dam.

  “What?” Kate looks at me, but I pretend not to notice. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Just ease up, Kate,” Elgin says over his shoulder. “You’re the one who wanted to come here.”

  “Sorry,” she says, stretching out the word and clasping her hands in a prayer. “I’m sorry for stating the shitty truth.” She passes the joint back to Elgin.

  “I don’t want any more,” he says.

  “You know what the truth is?” I say, quietly. “The truth is, until the other day I hadn’t thought about Max in months.”

  We all stand staring at the ground.

  “I have to pee,” Kate says, striding away into the forest.

  “She’s not dealing with this very well,” Elgin says, without turning to me. He’s still looking out over the reservoir. “She’s been crying at night.” I’m not sure if I believe him. There’s silence underneath the roar of the water. After a while he turns to me and says, “Why’d you guys stop hanging out, anyway?”

  I examine his profile, his thin lips and high cheekbones, his soft eyebrows and the curls of hair at the base of his neck. His eyes are always dark and intense, even when he’s telling a joke. I think about saying because of you or making an excuse about being busy with school. I wait too long to speak, and then finally I say, “I don’t know.”

  Elgin seems to accept the answer as the one he expected. I wonder if he’s asked Kate the same question. “She’s weird sometimes,” he says, almost to himself. “She gets obsessed and then just sort of drops people.”