East Coast Girls

by Kerry Kletter

  Maya had been so sure in those first days when Henry was in the ICU that everything would be fine, that Henry was young and strong and that life would not allow such an injustice. She visited, she talked to him, she brought him presents for when he woke up. But once he was moved into a home—his condition accepted as it was—she found excuses not to go. There was always something she had to do, a reason she had to put it off one more day and then another. Just like she’d done with those bills that kept piling up on her kitchen table. Better to stuff them into a drawer, pretend it wasn’t happening. What else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t fix it. And she knew she had to keep moving or she’d end up like Hannah, stuck inside that night, roaming the halls and rattling the chains of fear like a ghost.

  She sighed, looked around at the bathroom, the tiles skin pink, the natty white towels neatly folded over the bar, the white bath mat draped upon the tub. All the people who had paused here on their way to somewhere else, on their way home. She thought about her house, the only thing that had ever belonged to her. Why couldn’t she hold on to anything?

  Don’t pick at it, she told herself. This was what she thought when something was wrong in her life. When she was a kid, her father always reprimanded her when she scratched at the scabs on her knees. It turned out to be the only useful thing he’d ever taught her. Don’t pick at a wound. It just makes it worse.

  A sudden familiar restlessness kicked up in her, an itch. She’d always enjoyed attention, but in moments like this, something happened in her, a craving so strong and wiggly that she had to sate it just to sit still again. She pulled out her phone, scrolled her contacts, called the twenty-one-year-old with the scaphoid fracture. What was his name? Justin, Dustin? Jeff? Whatever. Irrelevant.

  “Yo.” He picked up. His voice was thick with sleep.

  Yo? She removed the phone briefly from her ear and stared at it, annoyed. “Hey, it’s Maya!”

  There was a silence, one second, two, eternity, and then, “Oh yeah, the nurse with the big boobs.”

  “Medical transporter with the big boobs.”

  “Right. Come over. I miss you.”

  Maya rolled her eyes and gave her phone the middle finger. Usually it was enough—the cheap thrill of men’s desire—so easy to provoke—a momentary distraction. But tonight, a tiny sadness, the size of a single tear, welled inside. She didn’t understand why. What was she expecting? She flashed back to Steve at work asking, “When are you going to have a real relationship?”

  Was that what she wanted? A real relationship? She peeked her head out of the bathroom, saw Hannah’s shadow in the dark, clutching her blanket to her chin.

  No.

  She wanted a good time. He just wasn’t it.

  “I think you have the wrong number!” she said into the phone.

  “But you called—”

  She hung up, smiled into the mirror to cheer herself. Behind her, the leaky bathtub faucet dripped—tock, tock, tock—the sound of insanity. She got undressed for bed, caught sight of the small constellation of scars on her back from the time when she was seven and her mother had thrown plates at her in a fit of rage. The lines were faded now, a mark of time.

  Back in high school, after she and Hannah and Henry had gotten ripely stoned on the roof of Henry’s house one night, the moon so low it was a fourth companion, she’d showed them the marks on her back. She’d never let anyone see them before. She feared pity, thought it contagious.

  Now she closed her eyes, brought the memory into focus. She could see Hannah vividly, her cheeks so round back then, that peachy blush she used to wear, too orange against her pale skin. She could see herself, too, her T-shirt collar cut off at the neck, her arms wrapped around her knees, her long hair grazing them. Her mind flickered to Henry, the image of him smudgy. It was strange the way she could remember each of his features but not quite add them together to make a face. No matter how hard she tried, her mind would not let her see him.

  Maya was laughing when she showed Hannah and Henry the scars, shrugging them off as nothing. What else could she do but make it not matter?

  But then Hannah had put her hand on Maya’s back, traced her soft fingers over the white raised slashes, and maybe it was the pot, maybe it was just that Maya was so fucking high, but something shifted inside her. She could feel Hannah’s fingers penetrate her skin, her bones, probing until they found how deep the cuts actually went, pressing lightly on the wounds to staunch a bleed that had never actually stopped.

  “You’re like a whale,” Hannah said, voice hoarse with the weed and with a kind of soft wonder.

  Why did Maya feel like she wanted to cry?

  “Henry, tell her she’s a whale,” Hannah said.

  “You’re a whale, dude,” Henry said. He was lying back on the slant of the roof, looking at the sky.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” Maya said, taking another drag on the joint. It helped to say fuck, to carve her mouth around the hardness of the word. It was instinctual to reject softness. Isn’t that what all the motherless did? Made themselves not need it, disdain it even. But it got in anyway, slipped in some side door of her. Thankfully, no matter how much Maya resisted it, Hannah and her softness always got in.

  “Henry, tell her what it all means,” Hannah said.

  Henry shook his head in wonder, an unfathomably deep question to ponder.

  Hannah sighed, exasperated that her profound pot-induced insights couldn’t be followed. “Because whales are all scratched up from shark bites and orcas and whatnot,” she said. She nudged Henry. “Remember that documentary we watched?”

  “You watched,” Henry said, gazing up at her. “I was watching you.”

  Hannah bent over and kissed him, then sat back down, reclined against him. “Whales are awesome, man. They’re all like, ‘Whatever. Go ahead and try me. I don’t care.’ They just keep cruising on, getting bigger and bigger until they’re bigger than everyone, the biggest on earth.”

  “Whales are outrageous,” Henry said.

  Hannah sat back up then. “That’s you, Maya. Inside I mean. You’re the biggest person I know. No one can break you.” She’d spread her arms as wide as the future.

  Maya laughed it off, but then Hannah said, “Don’t you get it? She threw plates at you and the plates are what broke. Not you. She was aiming for you but only destroyed her china.”

  And fuck, Maya really was going to cry then. She closed her eyes, and the scars on her back, those marks of hatred and violence, of being unloved, they were reordering in her mind—shit, was this pot laced?—transforming into the shape of a whale. And where once there was her mother’s fury, now there was a benign, resilient mammal tattooed on her skin, in her heart. Where once there was her mother’s fury, now there was Hannah and her love, not replacing it—if only!—but covering it like a soldier lying over the wounded.

  She wanted to say this but it was at once too corny and too meaningful. Instead she said, “You’re stoned, Hannah.”

  “She is,” Henry said.

  “I am,” Hannah replied, and then she threw her head back with that great laugh she had, so genuine and rewarding.

  She thought of present-day Hannah, too frightened to even walk into a motel room. Was it possible to miss a laugh so much you sprained your heart? She could hardly fathom Hannah smoking pot, much less sitting on a rooftop or throwing her head back with such pure perfect joy.

  She caught her reflection in the mirror. A whale. She rolled the word around in her mind like a pool ball, smooth and calming, knocking out worries of what she would do if the bank loan didn’t come through. It would, of course—but just in case, it helped to be reminded that she was a survivor. She looked again at Hannah’s Xanax, picked it up and tucked it in her own bag. She would prove to Hannah that she didn’t need it. That Hannah was a whale too. She walked out, leaving the bathroom door open enough to
create a strip of light across her bed.

  “You still awake?” she said.

  “Unfortunately,” Hannah said. “Why?”

  She had the impulse to tell Hannah about the situation with her house, to say, “Look! Another shark attack.” She didn’t know why, who she was trying to convince that she’d survive it.

  But then Hannah said in a small, tired voice, “You’re not really afraid of the dark, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Maya said. She walked back to the bathroom, turned off the light. “Go to sleep.”

  She got into bed and pulled out her phone, checked her social media feeds, refreshing them several times in case something interesting should come in. It didn’t. She cheered herself with the reminder of her secret plan. Fired off a quick text. She couldn’t wait.

  She listened for the sound of Hannah’s breathing, noticed it had slowed. Then she got up and turned the bathroom light back on.

  BLUE

  Blue woke with no idea where she was. She blinked into the disorienting tilt of an unrecognizable room—stained walls, an orange paisley bedspread, a television set circa 1971. She was supposed to be in beautiful Montauk, waking to salt air and the rustle of the ocean, birdsong at her window. Instead she was in a cheap motel off some random highway. She had to laugh. She let herself be convinced by Maya of all people—the used car salesman of friends—of the perfect dream vacation and this is where they’d ended up. It was so typical. It almost wouldn’t have been a real trip together if it had gone down as promised.

  And then, less amusing, she remembered Maya’s phone call to Renee. Also typical Maya. She rolled away from the spill of early sun through the blinds, yanked the sheet over her head. She knew it was childish to be upset about it, but the residue of betrayal lingered. Well, she wouldn’t let it ruin her trip. It was a quick call, nothing more. If Maya had any clue what Renee had done, it never would have been made.

  The sounds of low talking wafted through the thin walls, and Blue tried to listen in case Hannah and Maya were talking about her. But their voices were too muffled to make out. She’d forgotten how the invisible divide between her and them had always been there. Not that it was intentional. But sometimes, when they were all together, a vague loneliness slipped in like a fog, reminded her that Maya and Hannah were always each other’s number one. She had lost the one person—Renee—who loved her best.

  Well, it was no loss, really. The loss was in believing Renee had actually cared.

  Her phone pinged with a text.

  We need to get out of here before Hannah goes into cardiac arrest!!!

  Always with the excessive punctuation. Maya herself was like a walking exclamation point. Blue got out of bed, washed up, grabbed her duffel bag and went next door.

  Maya, wet haired and smelling like cheap shampoo, let her in. “Good morning, sunshine!”

  Blue raised an eyebrow. “Is it though?”

  Maya laughed. “It will be soon enough!”

  In the background, Hannah was throwing her clothes into the trash bin.

  “Don’t ask,” Maya said.

  “Because it’s what I slept in,” Hannah explained, stricken. “Please, let’s get out of here!”

  Blue’s heart tugged with pity. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live inside Hannah’s terrified brain, to see the dark underbelly of life ever present, illuminated as if with a black light. She didn’t know how to help, so she grabbed Hannah’s bag and carried it out.

  The day was gluey and overcast, the sun fuzzy and out of focus behind the clouds. In the parking lot, Blue stuffed their bags in the trunk and they all climbed into the car.

  “This place looks even worse in the light of day!” Hannah said, staring back at the motel like it might give chase.

  “Indeed, it does,” Maya said cheerfully. “But we survived it! Now if we could all just lighten up a tad—” she glanced at Hannah in the back seat dousing herself in Purell, at Blue probably looking world-weary beside her “—on our vacation...because hello, we’re on vacation...we might just have some fun.” She started the car, flipped on the radio, cranked the volume up. “Road trip dance party!” She swayed toward Blue, snapping her fingers to the music, flashing a big, cheesy grin.

  Blue stared back, unamused.

  Maya sighed, turned down the radio. “Probably for the best. No one needs to be traumatized by your dance moves this early in the morning.” She lowered the window, stuck her head out and yelled “Beach, here we come! Woo-hoo!” into the summer air. They peeled out of the lot.

  In truth, Blue was pretty excited. She simply wasn’t as emotive as her friends. But when she thought of the house, everything good she knew of life felt stored there. Funny to think that the first time her parents sent her there it had seemed like a punishment. She was being shipped off for the summer to another state and to a grandmother she’d never met. But something had shifted when she saw the house. It was rustic and square and as welcoming as an invitation, made of rich brown wood with a white second-floor porch that seemed to practically float over the water. And those steep steps leading to the dock—she could walk straight out of the house and down into the sea.

  Nana had run out to greet her in one of her bright-colored muumuus, her arms outstretched, her smile warm and genuine. “Little one!” she said, and just that, to be called an endearment for the first time in her life, dismantled Blue’s sullen defenses. In the kitchen there was iced tea and cookies set out for her and in her room a new boogie board still wrapped in its plastic, a teddy bear Blue was too old for waiting cheerfully for her on her bed. Blue was wanted here. She barely noticed when her parents left.

  That first summer, Nana had made a great companion. She loved the beach and sometimes even joined Blue in the waves, wearing the most ridiculous bathing cap with flowers on it and a suit so bright it could be seen from space, whooping gleefully at the cold water as the gentle waves struck her. But even Nana could tell that the days were too long for Blue without friends her own age. The following year she told Blue to bring anyone she wanted. Blue had brought Renee and Maya and Hannah.

  Had Blue understood back then what she was sharing? Probably not consciously. But in retrospect she could see how much lighter they all seemed in that house—where Hannah didn’t have to tiptoe and Maya didn’t have to duck a blow and Renee didn’t have to exist where people wished she didn’t.

  Those first few years, Blue’s father drove them out in his big black Lincoln Town Car, listening to news radio and smoking his cigars like the girls weren’t even there, the four of them squeezed together in the back trying not to breathe too deep or die from boredom over the five-and-a-half-hour trip. But the minute they saw the sign for the Sunrise Highway, something about that magical name ignited their excitement. Even the road promised hope.

  Once Maya turned sixteen, they drove out in her old ratty Jeep—the “heap Jeep,” they called it—hair whipping, music loud, a whooping cheer every time they saw that favorite sign.

  Each summer Nana had given them a little more space, allowed them to develop their independence in a way that felt both safe and giddy. Once she even let Henry come and stay the night. He’d been a counselor at a tennis camp in New York that summer and took the Jitney out. They’d all gone to the beach, dutiful Henry loaded down with all their towels and chairs like their own personal Sherpa. He was always such a good sport about things like that. It had been a hot day and the ocean was refreshingly cold and sparkly and they’d body surfed the waves like a pod of dolphins for hours. Henry and Hannah kept pausing to kiss between the sets while Maya and Blue made gagging noises at them. When the sun mellowed and lowered, Henry and Hannah had gone for a walk, holding hands as they disappeared into the distance, Hannah laughing into his shoulder. As Blue watched them, she’d pictured them strolling the same beach in middle age—a couple of kids and maybe a golden retriever trailing behind,
then old age, Hannah gray and Henry balding, still holding hands, still making each other laugh. Back then it seemed like the only certainty she could count on.

  “Hey, Blue,” Maya said, interrupting her thoughts. “Remember that time you got stuck in a riptide and it pulled you into the middle of a surfing competition?” She was already laughing, had clearly envisioned it in her head before she spoke.

  “Oh yeah. Some surf bro called me a speed bump and almost ran me over while I was drowning.”

  “They thought you were out there on purpose!” Hannah said.

  “I know! I was waving for help and everyone on shore was waving back!”

  They were all laughing now.

  “We called you ‘speed bump’ for the rest of the summer,” Hannah said.

  “I remember,” Blue groaned.

  “Was it Renee who grabbed some random dude’s board and paddled out to you?” Maya asked.

  Blue knew the question was disingenuous. Maya was well aware of the answer. She could feel her blood pressure rise but refused to engage or be baited.

  “That was some quick thinking,” Maya added. “Probably saved your life.”

  Blue stared at her for an extra beat. Then looked away. “I would’ve been fine.”

  “Remember how you went and yelled at the lifeguard?” Hannah said to Maya. “Who you then proceeded to make out with like five hours later.”

  “Oh yeah, at the bonfire. He was cute.”

  “He was very bad at his job,” Blue said.