by Karen Rivers
The sidewalks were so slippery, you’d practically had to skate back to the house after stuffing yourself on chicken fingers and onion rings and French fries and potato skins, ordering more each time you finished a plate. It seemed somehow like calories didn’t count while you were away from home, like your jeans wouldn’t be made tighter by the gigantic ice cream cake you shared for dessert.
When you finally found the house where you were staying—you’d gotten surprisingly lost in the tiny town, mistaking south for north in the dark—your host opened the door grimly, furious. She thought you’d been kidnapped. She thought you’d run away and that she’d be sent to jail. “How dare you,” she’d said, tears glittering in her eyes.
For the rest of the trip, you avoided her as much as possible. She put out food for you in the morning—stale pastries, old muffins—and each morning, you and Kath stuffed the food deep into the bottom of your backpacks. The school you were visiting didn’t seem to know what to do with you, exactly. You weren’t there for a reason, not with a club, it was just a random trade of you two for two of their students, who you must have passed on another track, your trains sliding past each other somewhere in Oregon. You were almost jealous of those students, who—under bright California skies—would be sitting in your desks in homeroom, going outside to eat lunch in the shade of the palm trees that the graduating class of 1987 had planted in the quad.
The Washington school was gray concrete and made you think of prison or skating rinks. The teacher who had arranged the trip was out with Norovirus and everyone else just seemed vaguely suspicious of you. The principal clapped his hands together jauntily and suggested that you simply observe. All the other students looked nervously at you with your then-pink hair and at tall glamorous Kath with her braids, so you were reduced to wandering aimlessly from classroom to classroom, pretending to observe, listening in on boring lessons that seemed to have nothing to do with you.
After a day of that, you gave up. You spent the rest of the week hanging out in the cafeteria eating huge chocolate cookies from a vending machine while everyone was in class, drawing comics while Kath instructed you on what to draw, and every once in a while muttering “How dare you” to each other and dissolving into giggles.
“What if,” she said, “you could draw something into existence?”
“Like fame and fortune?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Draw me on a stage. Draw me singing something.”
“But you can’t sing!”
“I can in a drawing, duh. Come on. Draw me in sparkles with fans screaming. Draw my future. Make me look super glam and rich and famous. Like Queen Bey herself.”
You did it, giggling the whole time. You drew her on the cover of People magazine, complete with the masthead. Then you drew the Right Max next to her, looking slightly cross-eyed. You drew his tongue like a lizard’s tongue, snaking out of his mouth and into her ear. “Gross!” she said, but she smiled a little, too. She hadn’t admitted yet, not back then, that she liked Max, but you always knew. You could just tell.
You knew her so well.
You knew her better than you knew yourself.
“Now you,” she said. “Draw your future.”
You drew yourself and Josh Harris, not on a magazine cover, but in a simple room with cinder-block walls. Sitting next to each other on plastic chairs. You drew him holding your hand.
Kath had laughed and laughed and laughed, bent double like she did when she wanted to emphasize just how funny something was. “That’s IT? You could draw anything! That looks like a scene out of a John Green novel. What is it, like a grief group? Church basement? Are you guys surviving cancer or something? You should draw him with, like, one leg. You could be . . . I don’t know, in outer space! On a pile of money! Hanging with Bey and Jay! And you draw . . . AA?”
You’d laughed, too, partly because of the accidental rhyme and partly because you knew your fantasies were so mundane, but you didn’t think it was that funny. Or maybe it was. But it was all you wanted. You and Josh Harris, sitting.
Holding hands.
You filled in some background in the picture to make it look less church-basement-y. You drew art on the walls. A picture window. A painting of a unicorn. Then, to make her laugh, you drew a huge pile of donuts. There had been donuts on the counter of the house this morning, yet laid out for you on the table were the same hardening muffins you’d been served all week. Kath had wanted to sneak a donut, but you’d stopped her.
“Mmmmmm, donuts,” you said, between giggles. “Fresh, delicious donuts! The donut lottery! We won! We won!” You kept going, drawing more and more and more donuts; donuts spilling off the table, a sea of donuts under your feet and Josh Harris’s.
Then you drew a cat.
“An escapee,” you told Kath. “He didn’t want to get taken to the vet. He knows it’s a one-way ticket.”
That day is the funniest day you can remember ever having, just you and Kath in the empty cafeteria in a school in Washington, tears streaming down your face, the whole memory now encapsulated like all the trees and leaves and grass, under a layer of ice, freezing it in time forever.
23.
You are sitting next to Josh Harris in a church basement on a plastic chair, holding his hand. Behind you, a table is covered with what can only be described as a donut buffet. Chocolate covered, glazed, jelly-filled, apple fritters, maple and bacon, sprinkles. On the wall, there is a painting of a unicorn, raising its hooves toward a rainbow. A picture window frames the view of the parking lot: a series of trucks and Josh Harris’s VW lined up like a row of soldiers.
Your heart is beating almost out of your chest.
You don’t know what to do or how to explain what is happening, which can’t be real, but is, so you bite your lip so hard that you taste blood, the pain distracting you enough that you don’t jump out of the chair to run out of the room, tearing at your dress—Kath’s dress—while you scream. If it were a dream, it wouldn’t hurt. You pinch the skin on your arm so hard so hard so hard that you can see the bruise forming. Your eyes sting.
“That dress looks good on you, I don’t know what you’re freaking out about. If I looked that good in it, I’d wear it every day. But fashion isn’t something that matters too much to me anymore, if you know what I mean.”
You press your fingers into your ears, like that could block out the sound of her, but it can’t because it’s not her, it’s just the part of you that will always hold Kath. Your heart or your brain or both.
“Just like AA,” Josh Harris interrupts your racing thoughts. “It’s always a church basement. I feel guilty drinking that beer before. I don’t think God approves of boys who drink beer.”
“Yep,” you say. Your voice is creaky, as though you’ve been asleep. It feels like an effort to talk, like the air in here is too thin. You hold more tightly to Josh Harris’s hand. You’re trying to remember what you were wearing in the picture you drew. Was it this dress?
Where did you get Kath’s dress?
You have to remember, but it’s impossible, impossible, impossible.
You peek down the top of the boots and see patterned socks. You know without knowing how you know that the socks are the kind with separate toes knitted into them. You don’t remember putting them on. You’ve worn them before, you remember.
“Plane socks. Everyone knows that your feet swell up on planes so you have to take off your shoes if you don’t want to suffer. Always wear plane socks. Look, I bought these for you.” Kath was laughing. The socks were striped and in between each stripe, unicorns galloped. The colors were too bright, too silvery, too tacky and you loved them and then she pulled up her jeans and showed you her own, matching socks, toe socks, the worst best socks in the world.
“I’m trying to think,” you say, out loud.
“Sometimes it’s better not to think,” he says. “Unless you’re
thinking about me, then it’s all good.”
You stare at him. His skin is so smooth, it makes you want to cry. Doesn’t Josh Harris ever get a pimple? Does he ever look anything less than perfect?
In your comic, he was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and that’s what he’s wearing now but that doesn’t mean anything because that’s what he always wears. You wish your heart would calm down or your brain would shut up or both.
“Something is wrong,” you try to whisper, but you can’t. There is the squeaky sound of chairs being moved around, the clip-clopping of someone’s heels on the floor. You can’t look. The smell of the donuts is filling up your mouth and maybe you can’t breathe and maybe something is wrong. You try to remember. You’re trying to remember.
Then an image comes to you. Your comic. In the picture you drew, he was wearing a hat. A baseball cap, tipped sideways, like it had been shoved onto his head awkwardly. He was smiling. You exhale. He’s not wearing a cap right now. It’s okay.
You didn’t draw this scene into existence.
You didn’t make this happen.
It’s a coincidence.
That’s all.
The sketchpad burned when the plane crashed. It must have. You shoved it into the seat pocket in front of you. You imagine the way the plasticized safety instructions must have melted in the intense heat, the way the paper would have begun to burn and curl up, like leaves on maple trees when they start to turn, but faster and faster, blackening and then turning to dust.
You twist your head around, as though you’re stretching out a kink in your neck. Your vertigo is getting really bad, the room determined to knock you sideways.
“Josh Harris, I love you.”
“What? I can’t hear you.”
You shake your head. “Nothing.”
Something is wrong here, you think.
That something is as real as the scraping sound of furniture being shifted on a dusty concrete floor. It’s as real as the smell of donuts and coffee, emanating from the table in the back, which is piled high with so many donuts, as though they were expecting a huge crowd. It’s as real as the warm air being pushed around by an antique-looking fan, which makes a tiny squeak at regular intervals as the face of the fan slowly jerks from left to right, spreading the heat, blowing a smell which is a combination of rust and dust into your hair, into your mouth.
You make yourself look up and look around. With intent. Dr. McDreamy would approve.
“It’s about reprogramming your brain to remember how to remember,” he’s saying, soothingly. “You can do it. You can choose.” He stares into your eyes and for a second, you find yourself thinking, God, he’s really cute, even though you know that’s not appropriate and then he says in a voice that’s not quite his, “CHOOSE.” It startles you and you stand up, abruptly. “That’s all for today,” he says, in his regular voice. “Keep up the good work.” You walk out of his office and into a hallway in a hospital. Someone is pushed by on a stretcher. A beautiful female doctor who looks suspiciously like Dr. Grey is leaning over shouting, “Don’t leave us, Mr. McMillan. Stay with us.” You can’t find your mom or your dad. Where are they? Why did they leave you here alone? And then you’re walking down the hall, which seems to get longer and longer with each step, and, finally, pushing open an exit door and there, parked in the lot, your red truck, the keys suddenly in your hand, like you’d been holding them the whole time. You get home without thinking about which way to go, as though your brain knows more than you do if you just trust it and let go. You let go.
You get home with intent.
“What are you thinking about?” Josh Harris whispers.
You shrug. “I’m in the moment,” you tell him. “I’m living with intent.”
“I was right about being the youngest,” he says. “I knew this would happen.”
More and more people are shuffling in now, shuffle being the operative word.
And he was right: You and Josh Harris are the youngest people in the room by easily sixty years, except for the one thirty-something-looking guy, who is in a wheelchair, his pant legs hanging empty to the pedals where he has no feet to rest. Apart from the fact he’s missing his legs, he looks a lot like most of the adult men you’ve seen around in Wyoming: balding, bearded, burly. The three Bs. The other youngish person is obviously the group leader, a woman who looks a little bit familiar. She’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous, everything about her seeming out of place here in this room. She looks like a movie star. She’s even wearing a sweater that looks like spun gold, clinging to her in all the right places, unbuttoned to reveal enough skin that even you look twice. She’s pulled her hair back into a ponytail and she is wearing brown tortoiseshell glasses, which keep slipping down her nose, but other than that, she looks almost red carpet ready.
“She’s so pretty,” you whisper to Josh Harris. “Oh my god.”
He shrugs. “Not as pretty as you, Schmidt,” he stage-whispers so loudly that the elderly woman next to you gives you a small smile. Her hair is tinted lavender, not unlike your own.
“He’s sweet on you, honey,” she murmurs. One dark hair pokes out from a mole on her cheek, like a spike on a cactus.
“I know he is,” you say, hoping it doesn’t sound as rude and abrupt as it feels. “He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh, is he?” she says. “Well, that’s nice. He’s very tall.”
“He is.” You nod. “He’s nice, too. I’m not just with him because he can, like, reach high shelves or whatever.”
“Well, good,” she says. “Nice goes a lot further than tall in the big picture.”
“Yep,” you agree.
You hear running footsteps in the hall, and then another girl, your age, bursts in.
“God, I’m so sorry,” she says, in an English accent. She looks so familiar. “I’m Poppy. Hello there, everyone. Look at all of us, surviving! Go, us! Do I do a little speech or something? Everyone here is very old, aren’t they? Maybe this isn’t a good place for me.” She touches her hair, tosses it like a horse flinging its mane.
You don’t like her.
“She’s insufferable. Real shame that one survived. But then again, only the good die young. Not that you’re not good, Schmidt. You are good. You’re just a pain in the ass sometimes, you know?”
“Survived what?” you say out loud.
“Gosh, weren’t you listening? We’ve just been told we aren’t at that part yet. Did you get a head injury when you survived your thing, then?” The British girl is talking directly to you.
You glare at her. “Yes, actually I did.” Traumatic brain insult, Dr. McDreamy had said. It may or may not affect your brain permanently.
“Explains a lot,” she retorts.
You wonder what would happen if you casually stood up and punched her right in her face. Your fist clenches. “Shhhh,” says Josh Harris, like he’s read your mind. “Don’t let her bother you. She’s on your side.”
“I don’t think being a survivor is actually a group effort,” you say.
The leader clears her throat and stands up. “Well, then, let’s get started.”
Poppy pulls out a chair and sits down, noisily. Dramatically.
“Feedstore Dwayne!” you say. “You’re his sister.”
“Which makes you the Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” she says, slowly. “Purple hair. I see it now. I would have pictured you . . . differently.”
“Rude,” you say.
“Hey,” says Josh Harris, ineffectively.
The leader waits, watching you. When you don’t say anything more, she continues. “I am a PhD candidate studying the effects of surviving something that no one expected you to survive. This can be an accident or a diagnosis. From a psychological standpoint, both are equally interesting.”
“I guess we’re not the only young people, after all,” says Josh Harris int
o your ear. His voice gives you goose bumps, like it always does. “Who is Feedstore Dwayne?”
“No one,” you lie, shrugging. “Nothing. I mean, I met him when I bought horse food. I guess she’s his sister.”
“She’s pretty,” says Josh Harris, like he can’t help himself, like he’s so overflowing with compliments, he’s willing to even give them out to undeserving girls, like Poppy.
“You sound like a bitch. Just because another pretty girl under the age of twenty is in the room doesn’t mean that Josh Harris is going to fall in love with her. It must be exhausting to be so insecure. Snap out of it, Schmidt.”
You pretend to be tucking your hair behind your ears, but instead stick your fingers in them. “Shut up,” you tell Kath. “Just stop. Please.”
“Sorry,” says Josh Harris.
“Not you,” you say, but it doesn’t matter.
You stay that way for one minute, then two. The leader is still talking, no doubt about the subtle difference between thinking you’re going to die in a month from a brain tumor and believing you’re going to die in two minutes on impact.
Interesting, interesting, interesting. NOT.
You are having a hard time tracking what she’s saying. It seems like it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with you. Your mind skip-hops around in time. Kath is wearing the dress, swishing it around her legs. “You like?” she’s saying. “I’m buying it.” Midnight is whinnying in his paddock, nuzzling his nose into your palm and then suddenly throwing back his head. He looks like he’s laughing. Josh Harris’s face is above you, stars behind him, and he’s going to kiss you, he is. And you—
Josh Harris nudges you. “Hey,” he says, again.
It’s your turn to speak.
All the eyes in the room are on you. Then Poppy says, “Oh, I know who you are, you’re the plane crash survivors from California. Aren’t you just darling in real life?”
So instead of talking, instead of saying the speech that you’d practiced in your head, you stand up and run out of the room, your cowboy boots clattering like hooves on the church basement floor, the fan blowing Kath’s dress around your legs like a current in water, tangling you in yourself, threatening to trip you up.
