by Meg Donohue
Objectively, Vanessa knows that this statement is ridiculous—how can Kate say she is close with Dani when she hasn’t even told her that her fiancé called off their engagement? Still, she understands what Kate means. What you love will always be with you. It’s a line from one of Lucy’s favorite books; Vanessa hasn’t been able to get it out of her head for months.
“Anyway,” Kate says, clearing her throat, “I should go. But, really, why not see Jeremy? You’re a happily married woman.”
Dani would not have been so encouraging. She would have said that Vanessa was opening a can of worms by seeing Jeremy again. She would have told her she should not see him unless she was prepared for her whole life to change.
After she hangs up, Vanessa looks through the window. Even this late, the city is too bright for the sky to reveal its stars, but she knows that if she drove just a few miles into New Jersey, the stars would appear, like a reward for leaving her life behind.
I’d love to see you, she e-mails Jeremy. Let me know when and where.
When the sound of sirens had grown louder than the sound of waves rolling and breaking against the sand, Vanessa pulled back from Jeremy. They looked at each other for a moment, smiling, before scrambling to their feet. It was illegal to be in the dunes and it occurred to Vanessa that some overzealous homeowner had called the cops on them. It wasn’t until she was standing that she caught sight of the flames that leaped into the sky, the smoke that billowed upward, blocking the stars.
Colin, Vanessa thought immediately. Her entire body began to quiver. What have you done?
Jeremy grabbed her hand and they followed a line of depression between two hills of dunes, their bare feet sinking into the sand. Vanessa felt something break the skin of her heel but she didn’t slow her pace until they reached the low fence that separated the dunes from the beach. She looked down as she stepped over the fence and when she looked up, Colin stood before her. His eyes were wild as they searched her face and his chest heaved; his hands were curled into fists. When Vanessa dropped Jeremy’s hand and took a step toward Colin, he backed away. Behind him, three flashlights bobbed by the water’s edge. Vanessa could make out a group of people throwing sand on the fire. It was a lifeguard stand, she realized now, engulfed in flame. When she looked back at Colin, his eyes were still on her face. She did not need to know it would be one of the last times he ever looked at her for his face to burn into her memory.
“Run!” he said. And she did.
6
Dani
Dani awakens and shrinks farther below the covers of her bed in the same moment, as though the morning might stop being the morning if she sleeps through it. She’d been dreaming about the bay in Avalon, reeds snake-like around her ankles, a blue sky hazy with heat, but now light falls against the bed in a long, glinting knife edge, cutting through the covers and into her sleep. She swallows. She fell asleep without brushing her teeth and her tongue feels thickly coated, the back of her teeth fuzzy.
She reaches one arm out from under the covers and pats the desk that doubles as her nightstand, trying to locate her phone. The corner of the desk overhangs the bed; every night she goes to bed sure that at some point she will roll over in her sleep and impale herself on this point, gouging an eyeball, and every morning she is slightly unnerved to find herself unharmed. She locates her phone and draws it under the covers. She has spent two weeks e-mailing her résumé to bookstores and cafés and has not received a single response. If she doesn’t hear good news today, she will tell her roommates that Layla, her bartender friend, is looking to rent a room and is willing to take over her portion of the lease. And then she will call her father and begin packing.
Under the dark tent of covers, the glow of the phone hurts her eyes. The night before, she and Rachel and Macy had swallowed codeine that Macy had left over from a knee injury and then drunk two and a half bottles of red wine before meeting Rachel’s bandmates at Hobson’s Choice on Haight Street. Almost immediately upon walking into the bar, Dani saw sparks in the corners of her vision. Maybe it was the unrelentingly red walls. Or the band’s bassist’s ear-stabbing Texas twang. Or the fact that it had been two weeks since she’d been fired and she hadn’t managed to write the final scenes of her novel. There were any number of reasons why her body might have finally decided to put its foot down. She’d finished her beer and, squinting, staggered out of the bar. On the sidewalk, a bearded man with a pit bull and a wild look in his eye had grabbed her arm so tightly that her jacket had ripped when she pulled away. She’d run the seven blocks back to her apartment half-blind.
The sparks are gone now, replaced by the decidedly more mundane ache of a hangover. Dani peers at her phone, scrolling through her new e-mails. There are no responses to her job applications. She is going to have to call her father. He’ll be disappointed, but he’ll get over it. She is his only child; they are each other’s only family. He won’t admit it to her, but he’ll probably be happy to have her at home again. They share the same sense of humor, the same enjoyment of a good time—Dani knows he doesn’t strive for this sort of lasting companionship with the women he dates. Not that she is comparing—or competing. That would be weird.
The phone vibrates in her hands. It’s Vanessa. She can’t remember the last time Vanessa called. Dani burrows her head back into the pillow, deciding not to answer. Then she changes her mind.
“Hello?” she says, wincing at the croaky sound of her voice. Vanessa, who Dani now thinks of as Mombot, likely arose with the sun. She probably had an early-morning latte and a Pilates class and then popped into an art exhibit on her way to a play date with some gorgeous, high-style friend and her gorgeous, highly styled toddler. Dani can’t remember the last time she actually spoke with Vanessa, but she gets enough pieces of information filtered through Kate to believe that both of them now securely inhabit an adult world of which Dani is not sure she will ever be a member. If only all of those English teachers at PFS and writing professors at Brown hadn’t insisted she was talented, maybe by now, in this final year of her twenties, she would have an actual career. Being irritated with herself for having these self-pitying thoughts does not, unfortunately, stop her from having them. They just keep coming.
“Dani? It’s Vanessa.”
“Hey, V. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Are you sick?”
“I’m just waking up. It’s only nine here.”
The line is silent for a moment. “So you’re not sick.”
“No, Vanessa, I’m not sick.” Dani tries to decipher Vanessa’s tone. Aggression? Exasperation? Certainly not concern.
“Then why haven’t you called Kate back? She’s been leaving you voice mails for weeks, hasn’t she?”
Dani’s thoughts race. Sure, she’d missed a few calls from Kate, but that was the way their relationship always worked: Kate called three times for every one time Dani picked up. If she answered the phone every time Kate wanted to talk, she’d never do anything else. Besides, Dani hated talking on the phone; it was awkward, even with her closest friend. She felt anxious without the visual signals of when it was her turn to talk and her turn to listen, so she usually just let Kate rattle on for half an hour before cutting her off. But now, with Vanessa’s accusatory tone—that was it: accusation! She should have known—in her ear, the thought of Kate waiting for her to call brings a familiar feeling of guilt, and a new feeling of worry.
“Is she okay?” Dani asks.
“She’s . . . she’s fine. But you should call her back.”
Dani releases a sharp breath. Clearly, Vanessa knows something, which means . . . what? Kate is not fine? She realizes that Kate and Vanessa are in better contact with each other than she is with either of them, and she hates that this makes her feel insecure. She used to be the one who brought them together, who kept them laughing, who ensured Vanessa’s outfits got wrinkled every once in a while and that uptight Kate skipped a class now and then so they could sit in the park and share a clove cigarette.
“Vanessa, what’s going on? You can’t just call me for the first time in who knows how long and then not tell me why you’re calling. You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m calling to tell you to call Kate. That’s why I’m calling.”
“But why?”
Vanessa is silent. Dani hears a hollow screeching noise in the background, metal grinding against metal.
“What is that God-awful noise? Where are you?”
“It’s a swing. I’m at the playground with Lucy. I’m convinced men design playgrounds to drive women crazy so men can feel justified when they cheat on them.”
“Ouch. Searing commentary from the sandbox analyst.”
“That’s me,” Vanessa says, sighing. “Reporting live from the jungle gym.” In the background, the metal chain continues screeching.
“So what’s going on with Kate?”
“Don’t tell her I told you,” Vanessa says.
“Told me what?”
“Peter called off the wedding.”
Dani pushes herself up in bed. “What? What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think Kate really knows. Or at least she’s not telling me. You know Kate—she has the most amazing way of yammering on for hours on end without actually saying much.”
“I’ll call her today.”
“Good.”
“I fucking hate Peter.”
“Me too,” Vanessa says.
Poor Kate. Her friend’s inherent optimism makes Dani think of a flag high up on a pole, something that starts out noble but over time, exposed to all of the elements of the world, fades and tatters. Who knows? she thinks. Maybe being the daughter of a good marriage fucks you up nearly as much as being the daughter of a bad one. Kate had once told Dani that her earliest memory was of walking downstairs after having a nightmare and spotting her parents sitting side by side on the couch, holding hands while they watched TV. In Kate’s memory, seeing them together was enough to reassure her that all was right in the world; she’d returned to bed without even letting them know she was awake. Dani’s earliest memory is of her parents fighting. She doesn’t remember what they were fighting about, just that the air between them was as sharp and stinging as wind gathering speed between two buildings in winter. She remembers standing there, shivering, while she watched them fight. When her mother finally stormed away, she walked right past Dani as though, already, she could not see her.
“What about Vegas?” Dani asks.
“Canceled. Have you checked your e-mail lately?”
Dani now remembers seeing an e-mail from Kate with “Bachelorette Party” in the subject line. She’d ignored it, figuring it was just Kate being Kate, micromanaging the details.
“I guess the upside is we don’t have to spend a weekend with her boring law school friends,” Dani says. She’ll call the airline and switch her ticket to Philadelphia instead, which will save her the mortification of asking her father to pay for her airfare. It won’t stop her from feeling like she’s limping home with her tail tucked between her legs, but it’s something. She does not even consider telling Vanessa about this development.
“So what have you been doing out there?” Vanessa asks. “The San Francisco writer thing? Poetry readings at City Lights? Love-ins with hot, artsy men?”
“Ha,” Dani says, her mood souring. She feels like a fraud. And, just as sharply, she wants a drink. Anything to bury this feeling.
“Are you dating—”
“I have to go,” Dani says. She doesn’t mean to cut Vanessa off, but she needs to hang up the phone. The longer they talk, the better chance there is that Vanessa will bring up the things she accused Dani of after Colin died—the accusations that forever changed their friendship. Dani can’t bear the thought of Vanessa apologizing. Or not apologizing. She can’t bear the thought of either, and both possibilities have been circling stealthily since this conversation began, flashing like sharks’ fins. “Thanks for letting me know about Kate,” she says. She hangs up without remembering to wait until Vanessa says good-bye.
Rachel is lying on the couch, her legs draped over one of its threadworn arms. Smoke rises in a steady stream from the joint that dangles from her fingers. She is small but strong with muscular arms sticking out from her white tank top and a pixie cut that, today, is pink. She is studying her toenails and scraping her slightly bucked front teeth with the pointer finger of her free hand.
“Thank God you’re alive,” Rachel says and takes a long drag off the joint.
“Did I disappear last night? Sorry.” Dani’s stomach has been in knots since hanging up with Vanessa, but the musky smell of pot has a calming effect. She sinks down into one of the chairs across from the couch and holds out her hand. They share everything here—the soy milk in the fridge, the bath-dropped paperbacks littering the coffee table, the drugs.
Rachel curls the joint into the cup of her hand, away from Dani. “Are you going to work today?”
“No,” Dani says. “Why?”
“It’s laced.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel says and moves her gaze slowly back to her toes, “but it is.”
When Dani was twenty-two years old and fresh out of college like Rachel, she too could be found lying on a couch drinking and doing drugs in the middle of any given Monday. Now she is twenty-nine, and she is still here. How is it possible she is still here? How is it possible she is twenty-nine? It’s time she moved on to somewhere new, even if that somewhere new is really somewhere old.
“I was fired,” she tells Rachel. “Two weeks ago. I’m moving home. But don’t worry, I found someone who will take over my part of the lease. You’ll like her. She’s like us.”
Rachel stares at her, blinking. “That sucks,” she says finally and passes the joint to Dani’s waiting hand.
Dani spends the day wandering the city, attempting to commit the San Francisco streets to memory. It’s the twentieth of June, which means tomorrow is the official start of summer, and yet the air here is cold and damp and she is wearing a puffy down vest and a long knit scarf and strange little John Lennon sunglasses that no one in this part of town thinks are strange at all. She is so desperately tired of being cold.
The pastel houses that she passes fit snugly together like saltwater taffy lined up in a box; she’s traveled all the way across the country and still she views the world in the context of Jersey Shore candies. Maybe this is why she fell in love with San Francisco in the first place: the air, in places, smells of salt and tides; gulls sit beside pigeons on thick black phone lines that zigzag their way through the Inner Sunset toward Ocean Beach; paint peels from homes in strips of yellow and green; San Francisco and the island that holds Avalon are both seven miles long, ringed by beach and bay. She walks the streets as though in a dream, like walking through a soft-focus watercolor of the city instead of through the city itself.
She orders a beer at Fireside on Irving. At the end of the bar, two old ladies with faded Irish accents are talking about their kids or maybe their grandkids.
“Bill never picks up the phone,” the one wearing a ginger-colored wig says. “I think he’s living with Karen.”
The white-haired one tells the bartender she could be a model. “You have the figure,” she says.
“Oh, maybe,” the bartender says, clearly pleased. “I’m not healthy enough though. I smoke and I drink.”
The old lady thinks for a minute, taking a dainty sip of her beer. “Maybe you’re better off here then,” she says.
Dani pulls her laptop from her bag and opens it on the bar. One of the many disturbing realizations she has made over the years she has been writing this book is that Colin is remarkably hard to write about, and not for the obvious reasons. She always believed she knew him well—she still believes this, actually, despite the fact that on the page his personality, his essence, is a slippery thing, difficult to pin down. He has become an enigma. Or maybe he was always this way, even for th
ose who knew him best, perhaps even for his twin sister. Anyway, next to front-row, straight-A, people-pleaser Kate, what could Colin do but fade into the background? He filled the role that he felt was left for him. Kate’s brightness made Colin seem shadowed; Colin’s hazy edges only made Kate appear crisper. They defined each other, the personality of one throwing the other into relief.
Dani thinks of the policemen knocking on their door that Sunday morning eight years earlier, grasping the citation Colin had received for setting fire to a lifeguard stand during a party on the beach two nights earlier. He’d spent Friday night in a holding cell and was in a sour mood all of Saturday, getting into a rare fight with Kate on the beach that afternoon, upsetting her so much that she had run away in tears. Later, he and Dani had sat side-by-side at the Princeton’s bar, drinking through their hangovers. And then, the next morning, there were cops on the doorstep.
Dani had stared at them. Even without their solemn expressions, their appearance at the bungalow would have made her anxious. Already the sky seemed low and heavy with heat. A blanket of humidity wrapped itself around her as soon as she opened the door, making it difficult to breathe.
“Is this where Colin Harrington was staying?” one of the officers asked, holding out Colin’s citation. It was wet and ripped, the writing blurred. A huge white gull landed on the stones in front of the house. It stopped and eyed her and then opened its beak. Its cry—half scream, half laugh—echoed in the street.
A terrible tingling sensation had spread through Dani’s fingertips, a feeling that flares again, sharp and painful, whenever she tries, as she does now, to give words and chronology and meaning to everything that happened.
The old ladies are talking about the price of their teeth, which leads them to discuss the week’s sales at the grocery store.
“I’ll go to Safeway with you,” the ginger-wigged one says.
